Glory Days 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 five stories that make up this collection revisit some of the
characters introduced in Gillian Chan’s first short-story collection,
Golden Girl and Other Stories.

Four of these character-driven stories focus on adolescents’
relationships with parents. Rachel Roper-Levy, in “Singing the
Blues,” is embarrassed by her hippie parents. A wealthy and
self-centred high-school senior undertakes a charitable act in “The
Boy Most Likely” only because his politician father convinces him that
community service looks good on a résumé. Luisa Rinaldi, the
“Invisible Girl” at Elmwood High, defies her policeman father by
dating Mark Lister and ends up physically and sexually assaulted. In
“Glory Days,” a university student recalls his high-school years,
when his father tried to relive his former sports glory through his son.
In “Courtship of Rudy”—the volume’s only departure from the
parent-adolescent theme—a teen misfit becomes the object of a cruel
joke.

Glory Days convincingly captures both the social milieu of a typical
Canadian high school and some of the harsh realities of adolescence.
Highly recommended.