16 Categories of Desire

Britta Santowski is a freelance writer in Victoria, B.C.

The author of these 11 stories writes with great passion. He locks the
reader into a shameless voyeuristic gaze, compelling us to look upon the
lives of the bitterly destroyed. “My Romance” can coax tears from
any reader as the male narrator watches his son Neddy die. Glover’s
characters are brooding; their empty aches infiltrate his fiction. In
“A Piece of the True Cross,” the male narrator and his sister Darla
(who was struck by lightening and almost burnt to a crisp) both fall in
love with the forever-unattainable Billy. In “Lunar Sensitivities,”
those who do encounter their passions seek to be liberated from their
heavy confines.

Glover experiments with the female voice in a number of stories. In
“La Corriveau,” a 37-year-old “girl” visiting Quebec City wakes
to find the dead naked Robert beside her in bed. In “The Left Ladies
Club,” a woman records her husband’s futile attempts at writing (her
husband, Duffy, names his lead characters Ruffy, Cuffy, Muffy, and
Buffy). In the title story, the woman narrator recalls learning of the
16 categories of desire from Sister Mary Buntline.

Glover has an enviable talent. His intellectually complex stories
invite rereading, although they may not suit all tastes.