Love Minus One and Other Stories

Virginia Gillham is university librarian at Wilfrid Laurier University.

After the fashion of Alice Munro, Mavis Gallant, and perhaps even
Margaret Atwood, Norma Harrs has created an impressive collection of
“slice-of-life” short stories based on significant private
happenings in the lives of ordinary citizens.

According to the cover blurb, “‘love,’ either the absence of or
the yearning for, is the theme that links the stories in this collection
together.” The other unifying factor, unfortunately, is the
unfailingly unpleasant nature of the incidents and situations around
which each story is built.

Harrs’s writing is capable, absorbing, thought-provoking, and
realistic. It deserves recognition as a strong example of contemporary
Canadian fiction. One would be hard-pressed, however, to describe this
volume as pleasant or enjoyable reading.