I like Carol Shields novels more than her stories but anything by her is first -rate. The short stories can sometimes feel overstuffed. STONE DIARIES and HAPPENSTANCE are terrific novels especially. Or perhaps writing styles are more spare now. I'm not sure.
I have only read a few so far. My favorite is "Mirrors." A couple has decided not to have any mirrors at their summer cottage. They don't even have saucepans with bottoms that might reflect them. For those three months, he shaves without aid, she does her hair without help too. It's a relief for her to not bother with her looks for those three months. Does the lack of mirrors give them both a break from narcissism, a break from societal demands? Or does it create an interim with new concerns?
8 comments:
Oh, that's an interesting premise for a story, Patti! And innovative, too - I hadn't read one like it before.
I like Carol Shields's short stories, too. They have a different slant.
I thought I'd read Shields, but I went back through my lists of story collections read since 2012 and she wasn't on the list, so either it was earlier or I just read THE STONE DIARIES. This one does sound worth looking at.
Still reading the Chandler/Marlowe stories and they vary both in quality and how closely they evoke Chandler. Without commenting on how good the mystery is, I didn't think Robert Randisi or Francis M. Nevins, Jr. gave any feeling of Chandler. On the other hand, Robert Crais, Sara Paretsky, Loren Estleman and John Lutz, more so, at leas as I remember then now. But then, I'm more a Hammett guy than a Chandler.
I must admit that so far, I've been disappointed in the Charles Ardai collection, though I haven't read his Edgar winner yet. Two or three are better than the rest.
I enjoyed William Maxwell's "The Gardens of Mont-Saint-Michel" in his Collected Stories. A young couple tour France shortly after the war (1948), when things are still in flux, cars are few and far between, and there aren't many tourists. They take a train from Paris to see Mont-Saint-Michel in Normandy (which, I must admit, I have always regretted that we didn't get to). They describe the restaurants they ate at, the hotel, and the almost secret gardens they discover at night next to the hotel. Then they return 18 years later, with their two daughters and a niece, in a Volkswagen bus they've rented. Not surprisingly, things are not what they were. The hotel has greatly expanded, the maitre d' in the restaurant is downright nasty, and the gardens... well,sometimes you really can't go home again. He did a nice job in his low key way of really bringing the time and place to life.
A friend of Sandi's decades ago thought mirrors were a portal to evil. So, her and her boyfriend had no mirrors in their place and refused to be around them. Sandi told me not to make jokes about it when we were around them and to just let it all go. I had a very hard time with that.
Anyway, blogger glitched, so my review for today did not go up. Fixed that issue and the review is up.
Short Story Wednesday Review: Hoods, Hot Rods, and Hellcats Editor Chad Eagleton
https://kevintipplescorner.blogspot.com/2024/05/short-story-wednesday-review-hoods-hot.html
Kevin, Sandi was wise, wise woman. We could always do better in reining our inner snark. No reflection on Sandi's friend or her boyfriend.
This is one of the books I got at the book sale last September, but I have not read any stories in it yet. "Mirrors" sounds good and interesting (and I liked Kevn's comments about a couple he knew).
I hope to avoid buying too many more short story books at this year's book sale, but I probably won't be successful.
Oh, I should look Mirrors up for sure. Especially considering the now inherent narcissism and appearance anxiety of current social media.
I actually deduced a rough pub year by looking at the cover design.
While Carol Shields lived and wrote in my city, Winnipeg, and co-wrote a play with a writing instructor I know well, I haven't read her work except for a small bit of one early novel. Maybe I need to give her a try.
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