The Roaring Girl

Susan Patrick is a librarian at Ryerson Polytechnical University.

Winner of the 1996 Governor General’s Literary Award, this
entertaining collection of stories features main characters who show
something of the nature of automatons, drifting through life without a
will, trying to behave well, but at the mercy of others whom they allow
to take actions that profoundly affect their lives, such as the couple
in “The Side of the Elements,” whose house is taken over by
strangers, or the couple in “The People of Sudan,” who are burdened
by receiving a strange box. The characters often display an ironic
self-detachment, as if looking at themselves disbelievingly from the
outside, or through the eyes of children observing their families or the
adult world uncomprehendingly, as in the title story and “The Death of
Brule.” Hollingshead’s stories contain much absurdist humor, and his
direct, straightforward writing style is in ironic counterpoint to the
bizarre situations and eccentric characters described. This is a welcome
addition to Canadian literature collections.