Things You Don't Forget

M. Wayne Cunningham is a past executive director of the Saskatchewan
Arts Board and the former director of Academic and Career Programs at
East Kootenay Community College.

Robert Currie is a Saskatchewan poet and short-story writer. The 11
stories in this collection revolve around the theme of “things you
don’t forget.” Characters include a man who recalls how a chance
meeting with Jayne Mansfield led to his marriage; a writer who
reminisces about how he became a poet by playing a game of ball; and a
grown son whose recollections of his abusive father cause him to break a
box of pencil crayons, one by one. In “The Black Aunt,” a
flirtatious aunt tempts her nephew to make an improper advance—an
advance for which he atones in a tragic way. In “The Mighty Atom”
and “Casual Labour,” “the things you can’t forget” are the
relationships between fathers and their growing sons. The son in “Old,
Ailing” is an adult who struggles to kindle a relationship with his
Alzheimer’s-stricken father.

An accomplished storyteller, Currie has a particular gift for creating
believable characters and infusing their storylines with a crackling
tension. This collection is likely to become one of “the things you
don’t forget.”