Best Canadian Stories 97

Claire Wilkshire is a PhD candidate in English at the University of
British Columbia.

Best Canadian Stories 97 is a superb collection of striking short
stories by established writers as well as those who have yet to achieve
widespread recognition. The collection opens with John Metcalf and
closes with Alice Munro, so that the two established writers bookend the
emerging artists—Mark Anthony Jarman, Ramona Dearing, Cynthia Flood,
David Henderson, and Christian Petersen.

Of the seven stories collected here, one is mainly about death and
another about love; four are mainly about love and death; and one is not
really about either. Christian Petersen’s “Horse from Persia” is
the somewhat tiresome monologue of a man about to be hanged. The title
of Ramona Dearing’s “Love Bites & Little Spanks” aptly captures
the punchy quality of a narrative about marriage.

“Love of a Good Woman,” which involves both love and death, shows
Munro at her best; it is a satisfying long story involving the complex
emotions of people who seem to be ordinary. The point of view is that of
Enid, an experienced nurse whose placidity camouflages her intelligence
and sharp perceptions, as she learns about her dying patient. Mark
Anthony Jarman’s “California Cancer Journeys” is an intensely
poetic meditation on the subject of death by cancer, while David
Henderson’s richly rendered “Remembering Manuel” juxtaposes two
conflicting sets of memories of love, death, and the loss of innocence
in El Salvador.

The effect of “Miss Pringle’s Hour” relies heavily on style and
structure; Cynthia Flood compresses emotion into the most matter-of-fact
phrases and simple repetitions in this story of restrained despair.
Finally, John Metcalf’s “Forde Abroad,” which opens the
collection, has not much to do with death and conveys an appreciation of
beauty rather than love; indeed, one of the strengths of this highly
literary comedy lies in the very distinctiveness of its voice.

Best Canadian Stories 97 deserves a wide audience.