Small Accidents

Sarah Robertson is the editor of the Canadian Book Review Annual.

Vancouver writer Andrew Gray is the former executive editor of Prism
International and one of two finalists for the 2000 Journey Prize.
Previous versions of many of the stories in this, his first collection,
have appeared in periodicals ranging from Chatelaine to Fiddlehead.

The tension between risk and stability is a key motif in these
resonant, lucidly written tales. Gray’s dissatisfied, mildly
dysfunctional characters either shun adventure or embrace it. “My life
is ordinary, smooth, muted,” confides the risk-averse narrator in
“The Fallen.” For Marilyn in “Safe,” a story about the
consequences (both mental and physical) of fallout, the future is “a
procession of small, dim rooms she was forever being herded through”;
yet the cost of freedom—exposure to radioactive debris—is too high.

If stasis is a living death, risk-taking has its own perils. A man
jettisons “the safety of routine” by sleeping with his wife’s
sister—but adultery is a joyless achievement, entered into “with
something very much like despair” (“Small Accidents”). A resident
neurologist falls in love with a comatose patient and suffers the
professional consequences (“Heart of the Land”). In seeking to
reinvent herself, an idealistic drug trial participant courts bodily
harm (“Intensive Care”).

At the same time, risk can bring moments—however fleeting—of
ecstasy and perfection. As he speeds over an Australian back road, a
cyclist experiences just such a moment before “the sun suddenly
whip[s] across the sky and the Earth [takes] him in her red, red arms”
(“The Land His Mother”).