Bad Imaginings

W.J. Keith is a retired professor of English at the University of Toronto and author A Sense of Style: Studies in the Art of Fiction in English-Speaking Canada.

“Laurence is wading stiff-legged into the lake, plastic bucket in one
hand, the other reassuring the top of his head.” Reassuring! This is
the opening sentence in the opening story in Bad Imaginings, and we know
at once that we are in the presence of a writer. This is her first
volume of short stories. The average reader (and writer?) of short
stories still tends to think in terms of “plot” or “message” but
Caroline Adderson knows that stories are made up of words, and that
skill in the use of words is the genuine writer’s main concern.

Bad Imaginings consists of 10 stories that display an extraordinary
range of expertise. Most involve a narrator conspicuous only for the
sense of style I have already illustrated, but Adderson also includes a
first-person story, and the speaker is a 19th-century male. There are
stories of children, stories of the aged, stories of young people
exploring the complexities of adult life.

Indeed, the only clue that might reveal this as a first collection is
the sense that Adderson is deliberately testing her range. While her
style is distinctive, I did from time to time suspect that she was, as
it were, playing some established writers on their own ground. There are
stories here that reminded me in various ways of Jack Hodgins, Robert
Kroetsch, Alice Munro, and Leon Rooke. But for the most part the
distinctiveness of these stories is astonishing.

Adderson creates a compelling sense of the unknown: children exploring
a mysterious world for the first time; adults suddenly realizing that
the ordinary world is not familiar after all. She can be tender without
being sentimental, frank without being crude. This is a very impressive
début indeed; Caroline Adderson is a name to be reckoned with.

And congratulations to Porcupine’s Quill for a beautifully produced
book.