by Mavis GallantMcClelland & Stewart
When Mavis Gallant submitted her last book to her publisher in 1996, some stories had to be cut to reduce the book to a manageable 887 pages. Luckily for her readers, McClelland & Stewart’s solution was simply to make another book, and just in time for summer! This new collection spans more than thirty years and includes some satirical essays and stories that have been out of print for years, or never before published in book form.
In Autumn Day (1956), a young woman moves to post-war Salzburg with her army husband. She is nineteen, friendless, away from home for the first time and married to a man she is not even sure she likes. Gallant captures her essence perfectly. We sympathize with her while being exasperated at the little girl in her. As she stumbles into adulthood “she wondered if all of this - my crying, Walt being bewildered - was married life, not just the preliminary.”
And all sympathy for Louise’s lover in The Cost of Living is lost in a few words. “Patrick, my sister’s lover. Well, perhaps, but not for long. An epidemic of grippe came into the city, as it did every year, and Patrick was instantly felled.”
This is not a book of ‘left over’ short stories. Selecting between any pieces of Gallant’s must have been truly difficult. She writes with such clarity and her understanding of our inner feelings, especially those we think are well hidden, is extraordinary. Her ability to translate this onto the page is what makes her a great writer.
A Revised Guide to Paris (1980) is a short, satirical masterpiece. “Dusk, one of the few institutions not yet under the management of Social Security.” And if you get robbed in Paris? Gallant gives explicit instructions on how to raise bales of cash on the sidewalk, using a piece of chalk and her carefully worded text.
Any new book of short stories from Mavis Gallant is an event to be celebrated. Going Ashore does not disappoint.
Mavis Gallant was born in Montreal, and worked there as a journalist before moving to France in 1950 to write. Her short stories are widely published. She won the Governor General’s award in 1982 and the Order of Canada in 1993. She continues to live in Paris.
