Mostly Country

Susan Patrick is a librarian at the Ryerson Polytechnical Institute.

The short stories in this collection are interwoven by their setting,
the mythical rural western community of Wadden, and the characters who
populate it. The themes running through the stories stem from the
characters trying to come to terms with the personal problems that haunt
them—adolescent angst, bereavement, unreciprocated love, and the
breaching of the small town’s rigid social stratification. Troubled
family relationships are illuminated and exposed by the author’s
writing from the point of view of different family members, and at
different times in their lives. In these stories, Nixon has created
poignant characters, many of whom touch the reader with a kind of
wistful sadness at their inability to gain the love or respect they most
long for, in a community where everyone knows everything about everyone
else.