Lord of the Fries and Other Stories

Dave Jenkinson is a professor in the Faculty of Education at the University of Manitoba and the author of the “Portraits” section of Emergency Librarian.

The seven stories in Wynne-Jones’s third collection of short stories
focus on character rather than plot. Rich in language and differing in
mood, each contains at least one central figure who possesses an active
imagination and who is in that stage of life between childhood and
adolescence.

In what begins as a lark, two friends, Carrie and Sam, agree to tell
the editor of a gossip magazine the true story of the “Tragic Tale of
the Lord of the Fries”; however, when they discover the reality behind
the man’s scarred face, they learn the worth of privacy. In “Ick,”
a teacher of a gifted class bestows inappropriate attention on the
beautiful, shy Annaliese, until classmate and would-be boyfriend Garnet
uses a made-up version of Ick, a fatal goldfish disease, to get a point
across to the teacher. Jim Hawkins, the central character in “The
Bermuda Triangle,” has not spoken a word since his father disappeared,
but the death of an old man who leaves him some triangular stamps
provides the impetus for speech.

As one of three members of the Rillas, a Lucy Maud Montgomery fan club,
the narrator of “The Anne Rehearsals” is initially delighted by her
school’s decision to mount a musical version of Anne of Green Gables;
unable to sing or create scenery like her Rilla mates, the narrator
despairs until she discovers her talent. “The Fallen Angel” departs
from the other stories in that it contains a fantasy element: the newest
member of a junior church choir may be Satan. Two social outcasts find
friendship in their imaginative worlds in “The Pinhole Camera,”
while “The Chinese Babies,” a different Christmas story, deals with
tolerance.

Lord of the Fries and Other Stories is a superb collection. Highly
recommended.