The Deep

by Mary Swan

As winner of the O. Henry Award, Mary Swan joins the ranks of previous winners such as Alice Munro, Joyce Carol Oates, John Updike and Leon Rooke. 'The Deep' is a story of 'utter originality' and 'it flowers entirely on its own terms, and the terms are rich and strange' according to O. Henry judge Mary Gordon.

The time is 1918. The place is France. Identical twin sisters embark on a journey to that war-torn country to work where needed. It's a journey that profoundly affects their relationship with each other. They are exposed to the horror and the confusion that was the First World War where old memories interweave themselves with a new reality, one that is tragic yet hectically alive with drama.

".....soldiers everywhere, and all the statues sandbagged, shop windows taped. The dark streets at night, only an occasional dim blue light. No hot water except on Saturday, no coffee, no meat most days. But all the restaurants and cafes were open, shows at night, people filling the streets - it was all such fun. Even when the big gun boomed, you would see people flinch, then shrug and carry on ..... We were all mad to go to the front, just to see it."

'What I find most compelling, even startling .... is the urgency of feeling and the calm beauty of the telling. This is a writer who arrives with grace and authority'. - Alice Munro

91 pages, Paperback

First published October 20, 2014

About the author

Mary Swan is a Canadian novelist and short story writer. She is also a trained librarian with a keen eye for history. Her novel The Boys in the Trees, a shortlisted nominee for the 2008 Scotiabank Giller Prize, was inspired by a newspaper clipping concerning a death within a family.

Swan was the winner of the 2001 O. Henry Award for short fiction for her short story "The Deep", which was published in The Malahat Review. That story later became the title story of her debut short story collection The Deep and Other Stories in 2002.

A graduate of York University and the University of Guelph, she currently resides in Guelph, Ontario with her family.

Reviews

[Andrew · Rating 4 out of 5]

A beautiful, haunting novella of two Canadian twin sisters who go to serve at a camp in war-torn France during the last months of WWI. A moving story of the sisters and those around them that ends the only way a tale like this can end.

[Rick · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Deep is an excellent novella that left an impression on me. It is a story of twin sisters from Canada who travel to Europe as volunteers to help out refugees and soldiers in WWI. The book offers valuable insights regarding the impact of the war on individuals and how they responded to it. The author, Mary Swan, used some interesting techniques; the book is like a series of vignettes told from multiple perspectives. At first I didn't like the technique, but gradually came to embrace it and the story. The story also explores the connection between twins. I found the book to be almost haunting as I thought about it after finishing it. Mary Swan won the O. Henry short story award for this book and rightly so.

[Véronique]

Bof.