Drawing the Spaces

Eve Challoner Pella is a MPP constituency assistant and a past Executive
Committee member of the PTA in Toronto.

Unifying this fine and disturbing collection of short stories (only some
of which have been previously published) is the theme of emotional and
relational space. It is not the characters but the negative spaces
around their relationships that are under scrutiny. Although the stories
are all well written, the collection as a whole is somewhat limited in
its scope. Almost half of the stories feature teaching, literary, or
artistic environments or characters. Another substantial portion delve
(unfortunately, not very deeply) into the world of street people and
largely middle-class social activists.

Most disturbing and arresting are those stories that deal with young
children. In “Lucy Gray,” a young child’s terrifying dreams are
interwoven with her mother’s preoccupations about her own marital
relations; and in “Storm of Life,” a family must come to terms with
the tragic death of the eldest of two young sons. Both stories convey an
almost raw tension between the dualities of innocence and experience,
trust and betrayal. Behind all the stories lies a spiritual reality that
enters the characters’ lives, to be experienced but not understood,
attended but not attained.