Late Breaking

by K.D. Miller

FINALIST FOR THE 2019 GOVERNOR GENERAL’S LITERARY AWARD

NOMINATED FOR THE 2019 SCOTIABANK GILLER PRIZE

SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2019 TRILLIUM BOOK AWARD

NOMINATED FOR THE TORONTO BOOK AWARD

AS HEARD ON CBC'S THE NEXT CHAPTER WITH SHELAGH ROGERS

A GLOBE AND MAIL BEST BOOK OF 2018

A QUILL & QUIRE BEST BOOK OF 2018

A 49TH SHELF EDITOR'S PICK

Inspired by the work of Alex Colville, the linked stories in K.D. Miller’s Late Breaking form a suite of portraits that evoke the paintings’ looming atmospheres and uncanny stillness while traveling deeply into their subjects’ vividly imagined lives. Throughout, the collection bears witness to the vulnerability of the elder heart, revealing that love, sex, and heartbreak are not only the domain of the young, and deftly rendering the conflicts that divide us and the ties that bind. Husbands and wives struggle to communicate, romantic relationships flare and falter, parents and children navigate their complicated feelings, and older women struggle with diminishing status in a youth-obsessed culture while the threat of violence haunts young women and girls. Yet as the stories intersect and the characters’ lives are increasingly entwined, fear, guilt, estrangement, and the fact of death are met by courage, redemption and the fragile beauty of love, in all its myriad guises. Brilliantly observed, both tender and tortured, and in no way afraid of the dark, these stories confirm K.D. Miller as one of our best and bravest writers.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, Canada, Book Club

194 pages, Kindle Edition

First published October 2, 2018

Reviews

[CanadianReader · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rating: 3.5

This is a collection of ten, mostly psychologically realistic, cleverly interconnected short stories, with occasional menacing, supernatural, and/or gothic touches. Each piece was apparently inspired by one of the paintings of iconic Canadian artist Alex Colville. (To see some of his work, visit: http://alexcolville.ca/gallery/ ) Many of the characters are middle-aged or older, solitary—widowed or never married, some of them haunted by a sense of deficiency, of never having quite measured up. Others are burdened by crimes they’ve perpetrated or been victimized by. Ambivalence towards or estrangement from family members, marital dissatisfaction, and loss of sexual intimacy in relationships are recurrent themes. The strong female characters do the emotional work; the men are often aloof, psychologically unavailable, and staid. An unusually high number of protected “only children” populate the pages. There are also quite a few teachers and creative types (three writers and an artist). It almost goes without saying: every one of the characters has secrets. Some of the stories are almost unbearably sad. In one of them, a dog meets the fate of almost every companion animal I encounter in adult fiction. It dies. Not cruelly as in some novels, but it dies nevertheless. Sometimes it feels as though an animal is there only for the author to kill off at some opportune time, milking the moment for its pathos.

While I admired these generally well-written, sensitive, and occasionally edgy stories, I found their plots sometimes took surprising, unlikely—even over-the-top—turns. In one story, for example, an undertaker blends the ashes of a dead woman with the paint used to create an enchanted forest scene for the deceased’s memorial service. In another, an old man watches a teenage boy (a complete stranger he’s only just met in the cemetery and barely spoken to) inveigh against and urinate on the grave of the 86-year-old’s wife—a woman that the man still feels lingering bitterness towards for her unacknowledged affair. Later, he’ll offer to help an ex-con have a second chance by providing him with funding for a small business. In yet another piece, an odd woman in her mid-sixties asks to be “deflowered” by a man she is barely acquainted with (the husband of a member of her book club), after he trips on the sidewalk and grazes elbow and knee near her apartment. Writers can, of course, do whatever they please. I just felt that some of the author’s decisions diminished the stories.

Miller’s book has deservedly been nominated for several Canadian book awards this year. It’s funny in a way, as a couple of the stories refer to (one even lampoons) book prizes and the rituals surrounding them. However, Late Breaking recently failed to advance from the Giller longlist to its shortlist. Is that because of some of the things I’ve mentioned in this review? I’m not sure. What I do know is that for me, as compelling as some of the stories were, there was too often an uneasy mix of the realistic and the improbable.

[Krista · Rating 4 out of 5]

In Late Breaking (Littlepress, Stoney Creek), Meredith takes her first lover at the age of seventy-three. Jill originally made both characters octogenarians, but Dennis Little, who wanted them sixty-five at the oldest, compromised with seventy-three.

Late Breaking is a collection of ten interconnected short stories that total up to something like a novel. Each story begins with a painting by Alex Colville – I gave my own mother an art book of Colville's paintings years ago because she admired their fraught simplicity – and it was intriguing to spot how author K. D. Miller took inspiration from each image (I don't know if I've ever seen full frontal male nudity on a book cover like this before, but recognising the image, it portended well for me). Most of the (mostly recurring) characters are in their twilight years, but sex and love and making art out of their experiences are still given priority – it may take a bit longer to get ready to go out, but no one here is sitting around in rocking chairs. The themes here can get quite dark – death takes its toll with murder, suicide and sudden heart attacks; not all parents like their children; not all ghosts remain buried – but folks carry on and lean on friends and find their comforts where they may. I enjoyed every minute of this read. The stories:

Joan used to bring drinks out to guests. Would she have used a tray for that? She'd never let him help, that's for sure. His job was to entertain, be all chuckly and urbane in the living room. If there was ever a crash and a whispered “Shit!” from the kitchen, he would rise and go, saying, “My lady wife hath need of me.” Then, when she hissed at him to just keep out of her way, he would re-emerge, give the company a seraphic smile, and say, “Every day a honeymoon.” – The Last Trumpet

An elderly widower contemplates his own mortality alongside memories of his late wife. Full of twists and surprising moments.

Even her publisher had trouble getting over the idea of wrinkled bodies, greying pubic hair, two old people heaving together in mutual climax. So Jill, out of some perversity, always read the defloration scene, which she managed to make both grisly and funny. – Late Breaking

An aging author is experiencing her first real professional success – touring with the other finalists for a half million dollar literary prize in the weeks leading up to the awards ceremony – at the same time that she's recovering from the heartbreaking end of a romantic affair. Affectingly bittersweet.

As soon as Harriet's in, the second she hears the screen door bang, she feels an arm come round her neck. – Witness

A seventy-year-old woman is attacked as she returns, alone, to her cottage. I liked that this Harriet is a character referred to in the previous story (Jill, the jilted writer, envies that her friend Harriet lost her husband to a drowning accident “through no fault of her own”), and as much as I enjoyed seeing Harriet's own perspective on the loss of her husband, I was most affected by her response to the attack as an artist.

Whenever she walks past the police station on her way to the supermarket or the cleaners or the library, she slows her steps, sometimes coming to a full stop. An onlooker might think she was momentarily confused, even lost. But Miranda knows exactly what she's doing. She's weighing the pros and cons of pulling open the door, approaching the front desk and saying to whoever is behind it, I need to speak with someone. About something I believe I did. – Olly Olly Oxen Free

Dark and twisted tale of a sixty-year-old woman who has spent a lifetime hiding a childhood secret. With rotating POVs from other characters, tension is nicely maintained as we wait for the secret to finally be revealed.

As he grew, he watched others for clues as to how to pass for anyone else. He cultivated a surface affability, an apparent warmth. Friendships with girls were easiest, he discovered, because girls came equipped with so many feelings. They could fill in the gaps. For a while, at least. – Octopus Heart

We learn the other side of the story from Eliot – the man who abruptly left Jill the writer in a previous entry – and it turns out that the only being who may have ever touched this man's stony heart was a captive octopus.

Not for the first time, Marion wonders what exactly it is that has gathered them around this table. Keeps Ranald and Patrick together in their condominium, and in a few hours will couple her and Steve in their bed. What name to give it. Love is too vague. Water under the bridge is only part of it. – Higgs Boson

A meditation on what keeps a long-married couple together – the analogy to the Higgs boson (not glue itself but the property that makes adhesion possible) is nicely made.

Publishing. His students think it's the Holy Grail. Should he tell them that it's more like a drug? That the more you get, the more you need? – Lost Lake

In a revisiting to characters from an earlier story, this creepily Gothic tale sees a writer who took something that wasn't his pay a Faustian price. (As much as I really liked this story, I wonder if it makes much sense on its own; the magic is in the revisiting.)

Pastor Peter led the applause. His mother poked him till he stood up and turned around. All six feet of him. With his thinning hair and greying beard. At least they couldn't see what he was thinking. How easy it would be to kill his mother. That night. Pillow over her face. Not much pressure. Just long enough for the jerking to stop. – Crooked Little House

Another story with rotating POVs that revisits earlier characters and introduces some new ones – mostly about how people can surprise you with their generous hearts and hidden thoughts.

Remembering, Harriet has decided, is not like reading a book cover to cover or watching a film from lights down to credits. It's more like viewing a collage that keeps changing and rearranging its parts. A pale, tiny piece in the corner might suddenly shift to the centre and start to glow. A brand new colour will seep through from the back, where it always was, unseen till now. A defining shape will all at once be gone, leaving you wondering if it was ever there in the first place. – Flesh

Many characters from earlier stories are shown to be interrelated in surprising ways; relationships change and grow.

She went straight from her girlhood bed to Ramsay's. He punctured her on their wedding night. That's how it felt – push, push, then stab. It made her think of the word compunction. Once she was home from her honeymoon, she looked the word up. To prick severely was the first definition. Remorse for wrongdoing was the second. It was her first inkling that her marriage might have been a mistake. – In the Crow's Keeping

Another revisiting with earlier characters and storylines that serves nicely to wrap up the collection: an eighty-year-old woman goes through her memories as she attempts to preemptively declutter her apartment in the event of her death, discovering in the process that she's not yet done with life.

[Darryl Suite · Rating 5 out of 5]

In. Love. With. It.

[Sonya · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was expecting something a little more twee, and delighted that it wasn't that at all. Intertwined short stories (mostly heartbreaking in one way or another; some quite wicked; one entirely frightening) that wrestle with loss, love, aging, and the fallibility of being human. Each story is inspired by an Alex Colville painting. Beautifully written.

[Joanne · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have always admired Alex Colville's paintings, with their stark realism and frequently unsettling dark undercurrents. These stories are like that. With one or two exceptions, the plots are slices of ordinary lives that slowly acquire a weirdness or twist that you didn't see coming. While it's not uncommon for a short story collection to have the protagonists intertwined, in this collection that intertwining is frequently tenuous or unlikely; you find yourself trying to remember where that reference fit in, where you remember it from. I found this intriguing, and I enjoyed how the author eventually tied the story to the image of the painting that starts each chapter. I loved this book and could have happily read another 10 stories. There are still lots of Colville paintings to reinterpret.

[Magdelanye · Rating 4 out of 5]

Get past the familiar. Paint what is already strange and gone. p73

By the time we have gone through each of the strategically linked stories in this well crafted mini-epic, the fully immersed reader might have the sense, as I did, of living just down the street from one of characters, in at least one of the time frames. Each reappearance in a different context sparks an increasing sense of familiarity. Regarded from so many points of view, there is no 'main character'. It is the reader who is central to the story that emerges from such a tangle and holds it all together.

Remembering... is not like reading a book cover to cover or watching a film from lights down to credits. It's more like viewing a collage that keeps changing and rearranging parts. A pale, tiny piece in the corner might suddenly shift to the centre and start to glow. p240

Holding on to the intimacy, the astute reader may become dizzy following the threads leading to a broader perspective. Too late I realized I needed a list, a cast of characters in fact. I did manage to sort things out a bit and I'm sure some readers will have some fun tracking the number of times each character features in which context. It is KDM's genius that has us re-evaluating our opinion after each reveal. Whose story is it? It is everybody's story.

That's what we do. No matter what insanity is going on, we normalize it. p150

[Deborah Sowery-Quinn · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this collection of linked stories. Firstly, they are inspired by Alex Colville's paintings, with a painting at the outset of each story, & I have always loved his work. Secondly, the writing is beautiful. And then there is a dark thread that runs through a lot of the stories that was captivating. All the human themes are covered - love, parenting, loss, aging, heartbreak, death, & so on. Great read.

[Alexandra · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful, empathetic short stories linked by several recurring characters. Sad, thoughtful, introspective. For fans of Elizabeth Strout, for sure.

[Linda · Rating 5 out of 5]

Even though I'm not a fan of short stories, I loved every word of this flawless collection. Think Grace Paley with a side of Flannery O'Connor.

[Danna · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this more than I thought I would.

I loved the stories paired with Alex Colville paintings - added a cool dimension.

I don't usually like short stories, but with the same characters appearing and re-appearing throughout, it had a different 'short story' feel.

Oh - and also feels good to read Canadian :)

[Silvia C. · Rating 5 out of 5]

I didn't know what to expect going into this book. I was pleasantly surprised to be enjoying these stories, loosely interconnected, about aging people. It is very different than what I usually read, but I find it refreshing. It was a nice mix of sadness, love and weirdness.
I completely recommend it to whomever is open to exploring less mainstream subjects.

[Shelley G · Rating 5 out of 5]

I picked this up at my favourite bookstore because of the Colville painting on the front. A bookseller walked by, tapped the book in my hand, and said "that's the good stuff right there."

All true, not a lie in it.

[Anna Sodero · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed the different points of view in each chapter, but found it hard to keep track of all of the characters and their relationships with one another

[Mauberley]

This is easily K D Miller's very best work. Everything coheres in this series of linked stories illustrated by the paintings of Alex Colville. The picture on the cover might have been painted for this book. This is a wonderful book, one of the best works of fiction that I have read this year.

[Richard Ascough · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wonderful collection of independent yet intertwined short stories that engage relationships, sex, aging, and death.

[Dcbk · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this as part of the CNIB read book club. It was so good - i really enjoyed that many of the characters were over 60 years old. I also enjoyed chasing characters from one story to another across the country. The characters were all so real and relatable - bright and dark - nuanced. I do not know if i would have felt the same about this book when i was between 20 and 40 - but now that i am 50 it is nice to read about people living and doing exciting and boring things later in life.

[Vontel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Worth a read. Interesting set of short stories about the human condition, inspired by Alex Colville paintings. Many turn out to be interlocking, or at least inter-referencing, with some of the previous stories. Overall, probably as unusual, & sometimes unsettling, as some of Colville's paintings. Was a bit of a challenge for me, to read the last third of the book about 3 mos after reading the first major part of it, without going back to the beginning again.

[Mish Middelmann · Rating 5 out of 5]

How wonderful to discover KD Miller! She is a deep and insightful Canadian author who lives in my new home of Toronto, and she is also deliciously irreverent. Another reason to be grateful to public libraries: I might never have found this book except by browsing randomly on the free shelves of Toronto Public Library.

I love the way her stories are often seen through the hearts and eyes of people aged 60 and over. And that these same people remain smart, passionate and engaged in life. Each story is inspired by a different painting by Alex Colville. Yet there is a myriad of threads linking the stories, from characters they have in common to her deeper themes of love and loss and regeneration. Several of the paintings are a bit dreamy, and she uses them as a launching pad. I enjoyed the way this seemed to give the author licence to explore beneath the conventional linear surface of life.

In her opening story "The Last Trumpet" she captures so beautifully the inner dialogues of an old man, navigating life alone with his dog after his wife's death. She opens the door on his intimate internal conversations about the life and death banalities of being old. He needs to calculate how to get up and carry his breakfast dish six steps from table to sink without falling, while allowing for the random dizzy spells he knows can strike at any moment.

In "Witness" she describes how an aging woman both reclaims her power and actually takes a form of revenge on a young mugger. In "Olly Olly Oxen Free" she asks

Does every marriage reach this point, and either break in two or just carry on for the sake of carrying on?

It's a bleak binary choice she contemplates, and while I think it over-dramatises - it feels to me like a question most older couples confront at some stage. Reading the story got me examining deep questions about my own life, in a good way.

I love the way KD Miller addresses issues I care about, with no holds barred, and how her old people still have enough interest in sex to navigate the challenges of aging bodies. In "Flesh" she also philosophises delightfully on the differences between growing up in a male or female body, unencumbered by a need to sound politically correct.

Younger readers, please forgive her for the following quote, and me for quoting it - we didn't ever want our minds or personalities to be determined by our genders, but from the latter part of life some gendered patterns nonetheless seem to emerge:

For all their giving and sharing, there's something essentially secretive about women. Tucked up inside. Not like men, hanging and swinging for all the world to see. Whenever she's been in a group of women going my-my this and my-my that, the phrase sitting on our secrets has gone through her mind. She imagines being able to enter and travel her own vagina. What would she find in there? Cave paintings? Glittering cities? An entire alternate universe? Maybe that's what men are trying to do with their relentless push-push-push. Explore. Discover. Claim.

As KD Miller said in a CBC interview for the publication of this collection of stories "I get the feeling I've been waiting all my life to be this age. I'm 67, by the way. It's a terrific age and certain things just don't bug you anymore. You do get a sense of perspective."

I think she uses her elderhood well. And I am grateful that it is such a youthful, energetic, engaged elderhood she shares with us. With just a smattering of craziness thrown in for good measure. I am glad that critics are comparing her with Alice Munro.

[Julie · Rating 5 out of 5]

When I first heard about Late Breaking, and how it was a collection of short stories inspired by the paintings of Alex Colville, I got extremely excited! I love Alex Colville and I could immediately summon the tone of some of his work. I wondered how KD Miller would deal with his often detached and linear presentation of subjects and the tense foreboding feeling I get looking at his hyperrealist works. Miller went above and beyond my expectations! This collection is arranged as a short story cycle and so brings back references and characters who appear in other stories. And each story is carefully crafted to keep you in suspense until the end of the narrative. At times dark and disturbing, it is well-written prose that really makes you think about the secrets people keep and why they keep them, as well as the power the people we love hold over us. While most of the central characters are middle aged and beyond, and some younger readers might find it off-putting (OMG - old people have sex????), I thoroughly enjoyed the entire collection. Olly Olly Oxen Free and The Last Trumpet were two of my favourites. No wonder this book was in contention for the Giller, Gov. Gen. and the Trillum prizes. Fantastic read.

[Benjamin Kahn · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed these stories! I actually didn't expect to when I started. I recently read a biography of Alex Coville which I didn't like, and it also kind of reminded me that I was less of a Coville fan than I thought, so when I saw that these stories were all based on Coville paintings, I kind of rolled my eyes. And I did in a few instances find the part of the story where Coville referenced the painting distracting, but otherwise, found the stories very interesting. I liked how the characters/stories were interlinked, which became gradually apparent as I read, and I really appreciated the viewpoint that she brought to the different characters.

I had never heard of K. D. Miller before, but now I'm going to have to read some of her earlier works. A very enjoyable collection of stories.

[Mary · Rating 5 out of 5]

Insightful short stories inspired by the paintings of Alex Colville, these stories feature interwoven storylines and characters, so that 'old friends' from one resurface in another. I am not a fan of short stories but these were compelling reads and, when one finished, I could not wait to begin the next. I thought I would ration myself, but it was an impossible task. This book will particularly appeal to those in the third act of life, as the characters become your acquaintances and neighbours. The author's observations on life are both commendable and authentic. Highly recommended, particularly to friends thinking of retirement.

[Cathy · Rating 5 out of 5]

The comparison has been made to Alice Munro and deservedly so. The stories are of life in a small town are complex, understated, unsettling and resonant. The kickass older female characters are believable, funny, and refreshing. Intriguing that the most satisfying relationship depicted in the collection is one predicated on a lie (Higgs Boson). Crooked Little House had the "Flea Bag" sad hopefulness feel, which I loved, and needed after the intensity of the preceding stories. Absolutely loved this collection.

[Dynah Thirst · Rating 2 out of 5]

It felt like 90% of this book was taken up with the characters worrying. Worrying about what other people think of them, worrying about their health, worrying about their kids, worrying about their pets, worrying about their marriages - and in the midst of all that worrying, not much seems to happen. The writing was a bit tedious, not in an overly poetic or wordy way, but just kind of slow and repetitive, although that could have been an effect of the constant worrying.

[Colin Grieve · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a wonderful collection of stories that manage to be both linked and widely varied in tone and impact, ranging from one of the funniest stories I have read in years to one of the most disturbing. The theme of aging, and becoming a person others don't see is beautifully done. So glad I picked this almost at random from the list of books long-listed for the Giller Prize this year. Fingers crossed for the short-list.

[Dorothy Mahoney · Rating 5 out of 5]

A collection of short stories which each reflect a scene from individual Alex Colville paintings, included at the beginning of each story. Miller writes puzzle pieces that interconnect to create
a bigger picture, as characters and plots resurface through different perspectives and times.
Demands a second read.

[Andrew Sare · Rating 3 out of 5]

Beguiling short stories, set to paintings by Alex Colville, with a title that matches a Tragically Hip lyric. It doesn't get much more Canadian than that. K.D. Miller is not so dissimilar to Alice Munroe in her settings and the way she sneaks up on you. Great stuff.

[Le Matts · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing! A book I wish I'd written!

Each story starts with a painting, an inspiration for plot and characters. Their stories are interconnected, which unveils their secrets and motivations and humanity. I loved this book!

[Christine · Rating 5 out of 5]

This collection of linked stories (which also completely stand on their own) was excellent. One of the best short story collections I've read in a very long time. This was my first introduction to K.D. Miller. I plan to read more of her work. A very good read.

[Beverly Atkinson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very engaging especially because the stories are each inspired by an Alex Colville painting, some more connected than others (thus making me think). Also, there is a unity that I haven’t often experienced in authors’ short stories (also making me think).

[Mitchell MacLeod · Rating 5 out of 5]

The best short stories collection I've read in years. Despite the sense of loss and regret that many characters experience throughout, there is still so much hope to be found in these tales. Masterful stuff.