The Night Piece

by André Alexis

A career-spanning collection of stories from the author of Fifteen Dogs , winner of the Scotiabank Giller Prize, the Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize, and Canada Reads.Vivid, profound, moving, and with moments of sly humour, the stories in The Night Piece reveal worlds both familiar and deeply strange. Drawing from Alexis's acclaimed debut collection, Despair and Other Stories of Ottawa , and the highly original Beauty and Sadness , and including previously uncollected stories, here is the surreal and brilliant short fiction of André Alexis--one of Canada's most extraordinary writers.With an Afterword by Madeleine Thien

Genres: Short Stories, Canada, Fiction, Audiobook, Cultural

384 pages, Hardcover

First published February 1, 1999

About the author

André Alexis was born in Trinidad and grew up in Canada. His most recent novel, Fifteen Dogs, won the 2015 Scotiabank Giller Prize and the Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize. His debut novel, Childhood, won the Books in Canada First Novel Award, the Trillium Book Award, and was shortlisted for the Giller Prize and the Writers' Trust Fiction Prize. His other books include Pastoral (nominated for the Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize), Asylum, Beauty and Sadness, Ingrid & the Wolf, Despair and Other Stories of Ottawa and Lambton, Kent and Other Vistas: A Play.

Reviews

[Krista · Rating 4 out of 5]

At night, it was easy to imagine a sacred world adjacent to this one, a world in which everything human was diminished and every speck of earth was a symbol of the divine or its opposite. It was even possible, at night, to imagine the worlds as porous, the divine (or its opposite) intruding on the banal, though he had no real access to that other world and only glimpsed it in strange dreams. For the most part, the miraculous seemed to shun him. It had left his life ages ago.

The Night Piece is the collected short fiction of André Alexis, and if, like me, you’ve only known Alexis from the novels that make up his “quincunx” project, these stories might seem to be from the mind of a different author. With tales for the most part weird and uncanny, Alexis pushes the reader to confront those things that go bump in the dark — even if, or perhaps especially if, they only bump around in the dark of one’s own mind — and they ultimately expose relatable truths about community, connection, and dislocation. Consistently interesting and unpredictable, in smooth and polished prose, this beefy collection masks psychoanalysis in Gothic storytelling and I enjoyed the whole of it. (Note: I read an ARC through NetGalley and passages quoted may not be in their final forms.)

The Soucouyant had long, dark hair, almond-shaped eyes, a nose that was a trifle broad, full lips, and a strong chin. Her neck was graceful, her breasts full, her hips narrow. Were it not for her breath, she was his imagined ideal of a brown-skinned woman. (But she was nothing of the sort. She was neither beautiful nor attentive. Her hair was not soft, nor were her breasts full. “She” was not a woman, after all.)

Some of my favourite bits: The spooky Caribbean fable of the Soucouyant brought to life in The Night Piece; the bizarre eroticism of The Third Terrace (involving only sex workers’ hands and assorted fabrics and lubricants); divining the source of creative inspiration (with attendant humour about Canadian literature) in A (“All their names began to lose sense: Onwood, Munwood, Mistwood...Why, he wondered, had he ever wished to belong to such a cloudcuckoo world?”). Throughout, there are countless ghosts and gods and civil servants; dreams and trains and so many cups of tea; poets and novelists and other madmen (Alexis himself appears or is referenced more than once; not quite flatteringly). I’ll also note that with most of these stories set in Ontario between Ottawa and Toronto, I was (naturally) engaged by familiar landscapes; most entranced by tales that set loose the strange in my mundane.

I seemed to glimpse a purpose to the universe: everything is pushed from behind or held in place. The stars couldn't move. The sun was held fast; the earth was constrained. All we could do, any of us, was spin. All that we want, and all we pursue, gives the illusion of movement, of liberty. There is no movement, no liberty, only local phenomena of such paltry significance it’s a wonder we get out of bed for them.

And while these stories are, for the most part, spooky and surreal, Alexis uses them to explore a consistent philosophy. This collection is interesting to read on a storytelling level, even more interesting to think about after the fact, and I am happy to have met this other side of an author I thought I already knew.

[Darryl Suite · Rating 5 out of 5]

This made my head spin. Even though I was already a fan of Alexis’ work (FIFTEEN DOGS is top-notch) and I was already aware of his ability to master any genre, this short story collection still caught me unawares.

Most of the stories in THE NIGHT PIECE were written when Alexis was a young man. They’re macabre and mind bending, very subtle in its approach, but unsettling just the same. This reminds me of the career of Ian McEwan, another author whose earlier work is much darker and acidic than their latest works would suggest. You think they’re one kind of writer only to realize they had a looser, more erratic edge prior.

Going back to THE NIGHT PIECE, every story is atmospheric. Alexis still possesses his philosophical nature here, but the stories surrounding it are a lot more sinister here. Pretty much every story and every main character for that matter, seem to embark on a journey that separates their mind from their body. A man is being stalked by a Soucouyant, an old woman who sheds her skin at night and feeds. A man whose soul separates from his physical form. A man who is seduced into the underworld. Employees who lose possession of their speech and motor skills after passing a book around the office.

But I guess the best word to describe how Alexis approaches these dark subjects is: haunting. There is an understated, somewhat tranquil and elegiac way he tells the story. It almost feels like you’re being told ghost stories around the campire, and the storyteller knows when to hit all the right beats.

Part Two was my absolute favorite section of the collection. Here, the titles of these uncanny stories are the names of classic writers (Maupassant, Cocteau, Henry James, Carlos Fuentes, Kawabata) in which I assume the respective stories are homages to each writer’s body of work. The stories here were particularly striking and always unnerving.

There’s no way around admitting that most of these stories are strange. They won’t be for everyone. I’m in awe of his imagination. He keeps switching up styles and moods and themes, but the common thread between all is atmosphere. You won’t be able to help feeling a bit unsettled by each. Whether it’s because you don’t know what to make of them. Or you don’t know how you’re supposed to feel. Or maybe you’ve felt them way too much.

Things this book will make you think about: Death (the fear of death or the acceptance of death), family, history, what defines love, devotion, spiritualism, and what is home? (location vs familial).

I am now a bigger fan of Alexis and kinda wish he’d go back to this style of writing. It’s a book that asks a lot of big questions through a series of unsettling imagery. It’s literary intellectualism presented as quiet horror, even folk horror. As I mentioned before, the vibe is ghostly. Some of these concepts I’ll never be able to get out of my mind. He’s a super-smart dude. The way his mind works scares me.

[Kammy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thank you to the publisher for a copy of
This book via netgalley!

A beautiful Canadian book!! Highly recommended especially for anyone living or haven’t lived in Ottawa! You will laugh and smile at the familiar places described in This book while being totally intertwined in the beautiful language of these short stories. Makes you crave more!

[Matthew]

Really good collection of stories. A few of them really effectively capture the ghostly or liminal feel of Ottawa at times. Particular standouts: the Night Piece; Despair; the Third Terrace; Letters; Cocteau. Reminded me of Thomas Ligotti or Paul Auster at times.

[Andrea · Rating 4 out of 5]

These stories are so enjoyably strange. I think I've always felt that the very fact of being alive, in this moment, in this body, with this particular mind, in this particular place is mind bendingly bizarre and unlikely. Alexis' writing reaches into the vague unease and absurdity that permeates everyday life and magnifies it, distorts it just a little bit so that these stories are terrifying and mundane at the same time. He presses into that feeling of absurdity that occasionally comes out of nowhere and throws me off balance. Alexis remains one of my favorite writers, though I frequently come away from reading his work unsettled in a barely explicable way.

[KeirrInWonderland · Rating 2 out of 5]

Have you ever read a book and just known that the book was trying to come off as super intelligent and clever? Well, welcome to this book. Where I did not think anything was interesting or creative. This book is a collection of short stories where that hates on Ottawa and the people within in. Basically, the whole story takes place in Hellish Ottawa. It takes a lot of… interesting creative choices, including but not limited to, taking the term short story a little too literal.

The entire thing is a collection of stories without meaning.

[Remy · Rating 4 out of 5]

An anthology of short stories he's written over the course of a few decades, The Night Piece is a tumult of strange, disturbing, and often humourous tales that leave the reader caught a bit off guard.
I hesitate to use "Kafka-esque" since it is so often misused, but it is an apt description. Aside from just being plain weird (something I always enjoy in fiction), the stories have similar themes of art and alienation, mortality and the divine (as well as the banal). Ordinary circumstances are contrasted with disorienting fantasy-like worlds that lead the characters of his stories to often question their own sanity.
My Anabasis was probably my favourite, a particularly confusing short story in which the narrator (Andre Alexis) receives a salacious letter from an identically named man addressed to his wife, Andree. Enraged, he is determined to track him down and get revenge in some manner. Naturally, nothing goes the way he thought it might, and though the events might be a bit anticlimactic for him, they're bizarre for the reader. Even more bizarre is the narrator's own attitude and way of thinking, which is unhinged and amusing to read.

I've read only two of Alexis's novels, and though the style is similar these stories are really nothing like them. I was a little surprised to read what were borderline horror stories. Naturally, some are stronger than others, but overall they were enjoyable and I breezed through them.

[Ben Truong · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Night Piece: Collected Short Fiction is a collection of twenty-three short stories written by André Alexis. It is a wonderful collection about life in Ottawa and Toronto.

This book serves as an entry (A book by a local author) in The Indigo Reading Challenge 2021. I just clicked the link provided for this entry and found this book rather interesting.

For the most part, I rather like most of these contributions. The Night Piece: Collected Short Fiction collects fifteen short stories, ten micro-fictions, and an afterward by Madeline Thien grouped into three sections. The stories are mainly taken from "Despair and Other Stories from Ottawa" and "From Beauty & Sadness" with five micro-fiction book-ended the series from Ottawa and Toronto respectively.

Like most anthologies there are weaker contributions and The Night Piece: Collected Short Fiction is not an exception. A few of stories were difficult for me to connect and comparatively not written as well as others, but they seems to be the outliers of a wonderful collection.

All in all, The Night Piece: Collected Short Fiction is a wonderful, surreal, and brilliant collection of short fiction from one of Canada's most extraordinary writers.

[Jack McClelland · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gripping and often spooky, André Alexis's short stories were super fun to read! His writing style is a little less high-brow here compared to the novels I've read, but I still learned a few new words, such as integument (a tough outer protective layer, usually of an animal or plant).

Written over the past few decades, these stories range in length and style, but most often lean towards a macabre magical realism. By and large, they traverse the geography of Toronto and Ottawa, with brief forrays into adjacent areas. These spaces are transformed by Alexis's characteristic merging of the real and unreal, where Ontario becomes a blend of the magic and mundane. There is a sharp Kafkaesque satire of bureaucracy (especially in the stories set in Ottawa, of which there were surprisingly many), but also a Djuna Barnesian fascination with the night and the shaded side of characters, bringing a pervasive eeriness to most of the stories. That being said, there is something life-affirming throughout that is typical of all good writing, proving Alexis's right to stand as a model and champion of Canadian creativity, in my humble opinion.

[Christina Barber · Rating 3 out of 5]

I recently finished reading André Alexis’ “The Night Piece,” and I wanted to like it, as I wanted to like “Fifteen Dogs,” and in the end, I didn’t particularly like either of them and for the same reasons. Alexis has no shortage of great ideas, crafting his stories around implausible and often paranormal or psychological events and people. Where I find his stories lack drive is in his characters; they too often fall flat for me, seemingly two dimensional, vehicles for plot delivery. The one exception in this collection of short stories was the titular piece, it had more pull and sway, particularly in the first chapter, but even then, I didn’t care overly much about any of the characters. Even though there were many setting choices particular to Ottawa, they also often came off as though reading a map, and could have been rendered more lively and meaningful. In the end, I finished the collection, but unless you’re a big fan of Alexis’ plots, it wouldn’t be high on my recommended reading list.

[Tina · Rating 4 out of 5]

THE NIGHT PIECE: Collected Short Fiction by André Alexis was so compelling! Admittedly I’m not a huge fan of short stories but Fifteen Dogs is one of my fave books ever so I was very excited to read more of his writing. I loved how many of the stories featured Ottawa or Toronto and I really loved all the unexpected humour throughout the whole book. It was also really fun to read a story with the same characters in his novel The Hidden Keys which I just read earlier this month. My fave work in this book is the novella A which is about Alexander Baddeley, a book reviewer, who meets his favourite writer. I could totally relate to him. I’d recommend this book to anyone who’s a fan of Alexis or Can Lit in general!
.
Thank you to Penguin Random House Canada via NetGalley for my advance review copy!

[D'Arcy White · Rating 3 out of 5]

There are times this writer makes me laugh out loud. But this is very much a book by, about, and for Canadians, and perhaps Canadian writers in particular. If you are not from or familiar with Ottawa and Toronto you are less likely to enjoy the book.

An early poke at Ottawa had me guffaw, and the stories about TO at the end made me smile. But much of it in the middle meandered into the surreal in a way I didn’t much enjoy. He’s a clever writer. But not my personal cup of tea

[Emma Harris · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dear all high school English teachers:

Please use pieces from this collection to teach your short story units. If I had read a single one of these in my high school lit classes I would have actually enjoyed it. It's been two weeks and I'm still thinking about #5 from the Ottawa letters. Alexis' writing is haunting, thought-provoking, and so incredibly well-thought out. Strong recommend for contemporary short fiction!

[natasha · Rating 4 out of 5]

Okay - I love short story collections. I am glad there was a piece of me that made me keep reading after the first two stories - because I really wanted to stop and felt the writer wasn’t for me at all. The first few really felt like they were trying too hard and I wasn’t a fan. But I kept it up and I’m glad I did. There were some excellent tales woven into the pages of this book. Three and a half stars.

[Anna-Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this over an extended period of time, for various reasons (still blaming Covid in 2021). Alexis is a fantastic writer and this series of short stories and novellas seems to focus on the "fantastical". I enjoyed it and while I have never lived in Ottawa or Toronto, anyone who has lived in those cities will enjoy these stories that much more.

[Paul · Rating 3 out of 5]

Alexis is a very talented writer, but I found these short pieces to be darker and often more bizarre than his novels, sometimes to the point of being unsettling. One of the few exceptions (and the standout piece) is the Novella "A", which on its own is a 5-star story.

[Cathy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Did not finish this book but it doesn’t mean that I did not like it. Ended up needing to read some other books. Some of the stories were a bit weird for my tastes. I like this writer and will definitely keep reading future novels.

[Jon · Rating 3 out of 5]

Entirely different from his novels, dark and strange and sort of disturbing at times. Not my kind of thing, but still a brilliant writer.

[Olivia Raiche-tanner · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love short, magical realism fiction. What a good time

[Anna MacDonald · Rating 3 out of 5]

Goodreads, I really want there to be a half-star, please! 3.5

[Carol Harrison · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quirky, dreamlike stories reminiscent of Murakami, one of my favourite authors, but with a Canadian twist. The stories are organized like a concerto, with a coda at the end.

[textualrelations · Rating 5 out of 5]

So damn good I could chew my own hand off with envy.

[Ramona Jennex · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wonderfully strange, surreal and weird short stories. I find the imagination of the author fasinating!
I am sure these Canadian short stories that will captivate you.

[Sofía · Rating 3 out of 5]

some stories were very strange and for someone who loves short stories some of these were short NOVELS not short STORIES

[Ava]

Didn't have the time to finish this collection, but I liked many of the stories that I did read! Also, I'm writing about two stories for an essay, so I feel justified in marking this as "read."

[Lily M ❀ · Rating 3 out of 5]

some parts were good and some parts made me laugh out loud. other parts were boring or weird or just unsatisfactory. for a man who loves a short piece, someone needs to tell mr andré alexis how to end a story...

[Charlotte · Rating 2 out of 5]

DNF - approx 50%. The title story was amazing, but the quality of most of the other stories was not as high. Very inconsistent.