A Kiss Is Still a Kiss

Jill Didur teaches English at York University.

This collection of episodic and quirky short stories highlights Barry
Callaghan’s fascination with the vagaries of contemporary life and
suggests that storytelling is the only viable survival strategy in the
face of such absurdity. In the first story, “Because Y Is a Crooked
Letter,” a visual artist and a poet return from a visit to their
pastoral farmhouse to find their Toronto home ransacked and burned-out,
forcing them on a year-long odyssey in which they struggle to
reconstruct their lives. “Up Up and Away with Elmer Sadine” follows
an unlikely friendship between a Holocaust survivor and a Vietnam
veteran who both reopen and heal the emotional wounds they bear by
sharing confidences about their traumatic experiences. At times,
Callaghan’s pursuit of the unusual but telling narrative event lapses
into obscurity. “Never’s Just the Echo of Forever,” the story of a
crossing guard who sings to a ghostly desperado, resists interpretation
because of the idiosyncratic and fragmented nature of the
protagonist’s off-the-wall experiences. Taken as a whole, this
collection showcases Callaghan’s ability to make impressive
imaginative leaps.