Coming Attractions 93

Elizabeth Siegel Masih is the editor of Write On: The Newsletter for
Young Canadian Writers and Readers.

Coming Attractions 93 is an intriguing sampling of stories by three
powerful Canadian women writers: Gayla Reid, Hannah Grant, and Barbara
Parkin. Although these storyweavers write mostly about ordinary lives,
each manages to use simple everyday occurrences (such as planting a
garden or writing a letter) in different ways to reveal volumes about
their characters in surprisingly few words.

The three Gayla Reid stories that open the collection feature exotic
settings like Vietnam and Australia (which she emigrated from in 1967),
but at the heart of her stories are characters who must carefully
maintain their everyday lives in order to deal with the loss of a loved
one. These figures appear to be strong, but in reality they use the
mundane as a crutch.

The people in Hannah Grant’s stories also live normal lives (except
in her telling of the tale of Icarus), but in many ways they are the
opposite; they manage to survive amid banality by finding their own
special havens.

In the final three stories, Barbara Parkin explores the complex sides
of people that are not revealed to others in the course of everyday
occurrences. Beneath their quiet surface of normalcy, her characters are
filled with restlessness and tension.

Individually, these writers offer us insightful glimpses into how we
live our lives; collectively, they create a balanced and complete view.