The Dolphins at Sainte-Marie

Virginia Gillham is university librarian and archivist at Wilfrid
Laurier University library. She is also a judge of national and
international figure skating competitions.

The talented but relatively unknown Sandra Sabatini is emerging as a
worthy successor to Canadian writers such as Alice Munro and Carol
Shields. Several pieces of her work—including the title story in this
compulsively readable collection—have been shortlisted for literary
awards.

Sabatini’s superbly crafted short stories follow a pattern of
allowing the “real” theme to evolve without fanfare from an
apparently unrelated narrative. The description at the superficial level
is so cleverly evocative that there is no need to articulate the
underlying message. The reader supplies it from rites of passage and an
awareness of society’s foibles and injustices.

In stories that feature ordinary, middle-class characters and the
situations of everyday life, Sabatini deals with orphaned children,
sibling relationships, bullying, sexual abuse, Alzheimer’s disease,
and the general unfairness of growing up and growing old. Her characters
are clearly defined, her prose understated and often subtly humorous.

The Dolphins at Sainte-Marie deserves a place in Canadian libraries and
private collections.