The Lost and Found Stories of Morley Callaghan

B.J. Busch is Associate Librarian (Access and Information Services) at
the University of Alberta.

The human condition for Morley Callaghan is pretty bleak. He writes of lost souls, mostly living in rooming houses, reaching out for human warmth — sometimes finding it; more often, not. There is a lot of pain in these stories, many of which were published in literary magazines earlier this century, and then “lost” amid the clutter of Callaghan’s bills and letters. Morley’s son Barry ferretted out these stories after Morley’s casual remark indicated that there might be “two or three” stories around that had been left out of earlier collections. The 26 stories finally unearthed by Barry and gathered here, along with several original sketches by George Grosz, represent a veritable treasure trove for Callaghan fans. The stories are wonderful vignettes, written in Callaghan’s usual spartan style, which manages to get to the crux of what is important in a very few words. There is something basically sad about the denizens of Callaghan’s world, made the more so by the writer’s unerring aim for the emotional jugular — a threat to a boy’s dog, an ungrateful son, a loving shrew who finally recognizes what she is. As is to be expected with stories composed over a thirty-year period (and some, in all likelihood, written in haste to support his family), there is an uneven quality to the collection. Nonetheless, the lost stories represent a real find.