Saving Rome

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

In a world where writers of short fiction seem to cater to the
attention-deficit set, jumping back and forth through time and
presenting images that may or may not connect to form a story, Megan
Williams is an anomaly. The stories in Saving Rome are almost
old-fashioned, having beginnings, middles, and ends, taking their own
time in their telling, and coming to satisfying conclusions that don’t
leave the reader wondering what just happened.

Although the stories in this collection are not linked to each other,
each has a Roman connection, whether through setting or character. Rome
is shown as a place of transition, literally and metaphorically: many of
Williams’s characters, often expatriate Canadians, are either leaving
Rome, or leaving some part of their lives behind, and are arriving at
themselves.

There is the 43-year-old overweight lesbian who wears a bikini for the
first time and is, at last, satisfied with her own life; there is the
frustrated writer whose wife is pregnant and wants to start her life,
though not necessarily with him; there is the woman who reflects on
where her life has brought her as she and her husband renovate their
apartment.

Williams writes clearly and honestly, and with great compassion for her
characters. This applies in particular to the Agnes in “Romeo Gone”:
Agnes’s dog, Romeo, goes missing for a few days, making Agnes frantic.
When she finally gets him back, she decides to have him put down. “The
arrangements were easier than she’d thought. She explained she was a
pensioner and that Romeo was no spring chicken and simply too much. It
was all too much.” I hated Agnes for making that decision. But I
admired Williams for not shying away from it, for avoiding the happy
ending that would have been much easier to write, but false. I also
admired her for not judging Agnes in her prose, but instead honouring
the character and her story.

If you’re looking for good writing, strong characters, and stories
that don’t bounce around, put Saving Rome at the top of your list.