Quickening

by Terry Griggs

For the most part, the stories take place on an island locale, but range widely in subject, character, and design. A story like `Man With the Axe', which deals with creativity within the context of a testy brother-sister relationship, moves along in a fairly traditional way, while `Unfinished' is composed of a shattered narrative, a collage of grief and anger that reflects the distraction of its speaker. The stories told are familiar ones, of loss and generational conflict and obsession, though the angle taken is often idiosyncratic and the humour admittedly quirky. The odd ghost may slip in; a dog may be given his intellectual due. The author has allowed the actual and believable to flirt with the imagined, the fantastic. In places, she confesses, to have stretched the truth until its face resembles one you might encounter in a funhouse. But then, when you meet up with it, the truth isn't always a beautiful friend.

Paperback

First published April 15, 2009

Reviews

[Barbara Sibbald]

I loved her novels, but in this collection of short stories I discover the breadth and humour and sheer power of her writing. They're wildly inventive and skillfully done. In particular I adored "Oral history" (about kissing in all its varied nuances) and "A Bird Story." If you like to nibble on short stories, this is a collection to feast on that will leave you sated.