More Than Life Itself

Lynn Szabo is an assistant professor of English at Trinity Western
University in Langley, B.C.

The half-dozen short stories in this collection were published
previously in literary journals. One of the most appealing aspects of
these short narratives is the remarkable interplay of language and
culture (French and English) in the (dis)connection of Cowan’s
protagonists. The author stands at these intersections, directing her
characters through their personal and cultural geography, urging them
into a life beyond their own imaginative powers.

Cowan’s narrators are imbued with omniscience that is so naturally
crafted that the reader comes to nearly perfect trust in the
characters’ alignments of themselves with their experiences. For
instance, “That Sort of Thing Doesn’t Bother Me” leaves us with a
quiet, questioning sense about the uneasy friendship between its
characters. At the close of the story, one cannot help but feel that all
is indeed “toujours bien compliqué” in life and in art. A similar
tack is taken in “By The Big River”: the epilogue diffuses the
overwhelming intensity of rationalized emotions within the story’s
centre of consciousness, Madame Chartier. After the dénouement, she
coalesces as a woman well seasoned and fully grounded in her solitary,
isolated wisdom.

Cowan, a Nova Scotia-born translator and teller of tales, has produced
a collection that glistens with possibilities and likelihoods that her
readers will find both authentic and disturbing.