Can You Wave Bye Bye, Baby?

Beverly Rasporich is an associate professor in the Faculty of General
Studies at the University of Calgary and the author of Dance of the
Sexes: Art and Gender in the Fiction of Alice Munro.

Love of, and fascination with, language is a hallmark of this collection
of seven short stories by an award-winning author whose work has
appeared in a number of literary magazines, including the Humanities
Review and PRISM international. In “The Third Person,” the heroine,
Elle (which means the third person in French), is especially preoccupied
with language: “words, words are sneaky like smells. Words are the
snipers hidden in the upper windows. All of a sudden, your still, quiet
head is a perfect red target and you never see it coming. Elle cannot
sit still when she thinks about the word innocence. Had she ever really
believed in the innocence of anything, of anyone? Had she ever really
believed it was a real word, with real meaning?”

Poetic and philosophical, the authorial voice in these stories details
and queries the condition of being adopted. Gasco maps the territory of
maternity and birth, focusing on maternal abandonment and the angst of
the one who has been abandoned. In “The Spider of Bumba,” an adopted
child is kidnapped by her birth father, only to lose him a second time
when the authorities apprehend him. The adoption theme is presented from
a variety of perspectives, and the maternal experience is explored and
authenticated both physically and psychologically. Gasco won the
prestigious Journey Prize for the title story in the collection.