Fiction: Short

★ postcard and other stories

Those who complain about the sclerotic and uninspiring nature of CanLit are usually directing their ire toward novels and novelists: it is rare to hear such complaints levelled at short-story collections. This is because, along ... Read More »

November 30, 2009 | Filed under: Fiction: Short

★ Love in Infant Monkeys

By Lydia Millet

Stories involving animals can often be a mixed blessing. At their worst, like the manipulative treacle of Marley & Me, such tales use animals as a contrivance through which human characters may better themselves. A ... Read More »

November 16, 2009 | Filed under: Fiction: Short

The Only Thing I Have

By Rhonda Waterfall

In The Only Thing I Have, Rhonda Waterfall’s first collection of short stories, we’re presented with characters incapable of self-scrutiny. But not knowing what they want doesn’t stop them from acting. On the contrary, there’s ... Read More »

October 16, 2009 | Filed under: Fiction: Short

Can’tLit: Fearless Fiction from Broken Pencil Magazine

By Richard Rosenbaum, ed.

Though its precise origins are unclear, the term CanLit is now culturally enshrined as shorthand for all that is established and orthodox (or boring and stuffy) in Canadian fiction. The anthology Can’tLit sets itself in ... Read More »

October 16, 2009 | Filed under: Fiction: Short

The Last Shot

By Leon Rooke

As his total number of published short stories exceeds 300, it seems unnecessary to dwell upon Leon Rooke’s much-celebrated productivity. What demands consideration, however, is whether such torrential output can exist without a corresponding dilution ... Read More »

October 16, 2009 | Filed under: Children and YA Non-fiction, Fiction: Short

★ Animal

By Alexandra Leggat

From different parts of the country and at different turns along this mortal coil, two Canadian women offer new short-fiction collections with striking perspectives on society, work, relationships, and the self. In Walking on Water, ... Read More »

October 5, 2009 | Filed under: Fiction: Short

Walking on Water

By Jancis M. Andrews

October 5, 2009 | Filed under: Fiction: Short

★ Too Much Happiness

By Alice Munro

In his 2004 New York Times review of Alice Munro’s Runaway, author Jonathan Franzen painted himself into a corner by bluntly stating what has likely occurred to most reviewers of Munro’s work: “Runaway is so ... Read More »

October 5, 2009 | Filed under: Fiction: Short

Selected Blackouts

By John Goldbach

One of the greatest illusory effects in literature was achieved by Ernest Hemingway, who likened his writing to the dignified movement of an iceberg, the critical mass of which remains concealed from sight. His prose ... Read More »

August 11, 2009 | Filed under: Fiction: Short

Truth and Other Fictions

By Eva Tihanyi

In her first collection of short stories, Eva Tihanyi aims to reveal some truths about women’s lives. The 13 stories in the collection are written in highly intimate and often ironic prose, and many involve ... Read More »

July 27, 2009 | Filed under: Fiction: Short

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