Going Ashore

by Mavis Gallant, Alberto Manguel (Introduction)

One of the world’s great short-story writers emerges with a selection of stories from her past, a trove of hidden treasures.

Mavis Gallant moved from Montreal to Paris in 1950 to write short stories for a living. Since then she has continued to write, producing a remarkable body of work. In 1993, Robertson Davies said: “She has written many short stories. My calculation suggests that she has written in this form at least the equivalent of twenty novels.”

Many of her stories have been anthologized, notably in the 1996 classic Selected Stories, from which hundreds of pages had to be cut for reasons of length.

These “embarrassment of riches” stories are restored in this collection, along with many other neglected treasures from her past. Arranged in the order in which they appeared, they shed light on people living through most of the second half of the 20th century.

More important, they show one of the greatest short-story writers of our time at work, delineating a series of worlds with dramatic flair, dazzlingly precise language, a wicked wit, and a vivid understanding of the human condition.

Even Mavis Gallant’s most devoted admirers will find many stories here that they do not know. For newer admirers, this will prove to be a wonderful source of constant pleasure, leaving only the great mystery: How does she do it?

Genres: Short Stories, Canada, Fiction

376 pages, Hardcover

Published April 7, 2009

About the author

Canadian journalist and fiction writer. In her twenties, Gallant worked as a reporter for the Montreal Standard. She left journalism in 1950 to pursue fiction writing. To that end, always needing autonomy and privacy, she moved to France.

In 1981, Gallant was honoured by her native country and made an Officer of the Order of Canada for her contribution to literature. That same year she also received the Governor General's Award for literature for her collection of stories, Home Truths. In 1983-84, she returned to Canada as the University of Toronto's writer-in-residence. In 1991 Queen’s University awarded her an honorary LL.D. In 1993 she was promoted to Companion of the Order of Canada.

In 1989, Gallant was made a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. In 2000, she won the Matt Cohen Prize, and in 2002 the Rea Award for the Short Story. The O. Henry Prize Stories of 2003 was dedicated to her. In 2004, Gallant was awarded a Lannan Literary Fellowship.

With Alice Munro, Gallant was one of a few Canadian authors whose works regularly appeared in The New Yorker. Many of Gallant’s stories had debuted in the magazine before subsequently being published in a collection.

Although she maintained her Canadian citizenship, Gallant continued to live in Paris, France since the 1950s.

On November 8, 2006, Mavis Gallant received the Prix Athanase-David from the government of her native province of Quebec. She was the first author writing in English to receive this award in its 38 years of existence.

Reviews

[Cheryl · Rating 5 out of 5]

From “The Cost of Living”, a short story. P 184.
“The beginning had already rushed into the past and frozen there, as if, from the first afternoon, each had been thinking, This is how it will be remembered.”
*
Same. P 194.
“They were young and ambitious and frightened; and they were French, so that their learned behaviour was all smoothness. There was no crevice where an emotion could hold.”
****
The Legacy, p 35. “…The old maidish asperity that had lately begun to creep through her conversation like an ink-stain.”

[Jennifer Porter · Rating 3 out of 5]

The stories Gallant wrote dating from the 50's to the early 70's are fascinating and worth the read. The stories from the 80's, the political ones, without any sort of narrative arc did not hold my attention.

[Frank · Rating 4 out of 5]

Four stars instead of five because this collection contains, in addition to the stories that are among her best, also a few stories and skits that don't do much for me. In this respect, the nearly identical American (and British) edition issued under the title The Cost of Living (which also boasts an interesting introduction by Jhumpa Lahiri) does better. Going Ashore contains 31 stories; The Cost of Living contains 19 of those same stories, plus one other story (‘Rose’) that has never been collected in book form elsewhere. What the American counterpart leaves out, in addition to the two early (and very enjoyable) stories ‘Wing’s Chips’ and ‘One Morning in May’, are nine short satirical skits the humour of which mostly eludes me. It is either too private, too abstruse or too topical – in any case these pieces don’t appeal to me; some readers may get more out of them than I do, but on the whole I’d suspect they are bound to appeal to a far smaller audience than the best of her stories. So in my opinion leaving them out wasn’t a bad idea on the part of the editors of the American/British edition; and leaving them in slightly lessens my appreciation for this volume.

The rest of the stories, however, all dating from the 50s and 60s (plus the novella length ‘The Burgundy Weekend’ from 1970-71), are all worthwhile, the highlights for me being ‘Going Ashore’, ‘Wing’s Chips’, ‘The Legacy’, ‘The Cost of Living’, ‘Madeline’s Birthday’ and ‘Thieves and Rascals’.

For anyone interested in a full inventory of the differences between the two volumes: the stories in Going Ashore that are currently easily available only in this collection are ‘From Gamut to Yalta’, ‘Paola and Renata’, ‘Dido Flute, Spouse to Europe’, ‘Siegfried’s Memoirs’, ‘A Revised Guide to Paris’, ‘La Vie Parisienne’, ‘French Crenellation’, ‘Mousse’, ‘On With the New in France’, and ‘Treading Water’. In addition, the stories ‘Wing’s Chips’ and ‘One Morning in May’ are not reprised in The Cost of Living or any other later collection; but they were part of her debut collection The Other Paris (the latter story there entitled ‘One Morning in June’), and anyone wanting to read them could also consult the text that seems to be available for free on www.archive.org.

[Aaron Ambrose · Rating 4 out of 5]

A posthumous collection of short stories is always a bit suspect, and true to form, a few of these are clunkers. But when Gallant is on, she's on, and nobody else is as devastatingly, economically clear-eyed about our confused human hearts.

[Janey · Rating 5 out of 5]

This collection of stories was assembled by Ms. Gallant from her works that either were never published or had gone out of print. They are her children, left behind. For no other reason, it is a fascinating read. It reassures me, as a writer, that some good work will not find daylight (or publication) in its youth, but that doesn't mean it has no merit. I found myself reading to see why these would have escaped publication, and I'm darned if I know. Some are more accessible than others, but each of them has something remarkable to give. I read the whole collection straight through, and was intrigued by each story.

Highly recommended.

[Carol · Rating 2 out of 5]

Gallant's short-stories came highly recommended to me so I suspect my expectations were too high. I had never heard of this author but she was born in Canada and lived in France until her death at 91 this year.
I found her stories too foreign for me, not only the countries but the characters as well. There were a couple of stories that I did relate to, although I cannot recall which ones. I realize that the problem is probably with me not with her as she is acclaimed as being one of the best short-story authors. I am just not the continental type.

While I was reading Going Ashore, Alice Munro won her Publitzer prize and I wished I was reading about my homeland instead.

[Rena Graham · Rating 3 out of 5]

Another brilliant writer who's style and voice I can totally relate to but with characters lacking even a trace of insight. I don't want to read about people sleepwalking through life. Maybe other books of hers would be more enjoyable.

[Sandra]

Not Atwood.

[Maureen]

excellent writer but very dismal plots about living in Europe after WWII