The Rule of Last Clear Chance

Linda M. Bayley is a freelance writer based in Sudbury, Ontario. She is
the author of Estrangement: Poems.

This is how Judith McCormack describes one of her characters: “[S]he
had a flyaway haircut that looked as if she had been standing in a stiff
breeze waiting for her life to arrive.” Another character has a body
that’s “sudden, no outline in the air around it, just the instant
edge of his skin, pale and flecked, almost unripe looking.” These are
the kinds of observations that pepper McCormack’s writing and make it
come alive.

There are no clichés in her stories. When she has an idea to explore,
she forges new trails across the landscapes of language and metaphor to
territories where it seems that no other writer has ever set foot. Take
“Hardiness Zones,” for example. Leni’s attempts to conceive a
child, and her eventual miscarriage, are related in terms of her
scraggly, weed-infested garden: no matter what she plants, everything
but the weeds withers and dies, even though it is set into the same soil
as the flourishing garden belonging to the old Portuguese man just next
door. On top of this, Leni is a stranger in her new neighbourhood,

and still trying to find her place in her relationship with her
boyfriend, Toby, now that they’ve moved in together. What will it take
for Leni to flourish in this new environment? Is she hardy enough?

McCormack sets a new standard for short-story writing in this debut
collection, and perhaps more importantly, for seeing life in all of its
dimensions. We need more writers like her.