The Elizabeth Stories

by Isabel Huggan

Book by Isabel Huggan

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, Canada, Coming Of Age, Canadian Literature

184 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1987

About the author

Isabel Huggan (born 1943, Kitchener, Ontario, Canada), is a prize-winning Canadian author of fiction and personal essays.

(from Wikipedia)

Reviews

[Claire Fuller · Rating 5 out of 5]

This collection of Canadian short stories should definitely be better known because they're wonderful. Eight stories about the eponymous Elizabeth from age 7 to 17, taking us through relationships with friends, family and boyfriends. The writing is unshowy, letting the stories shine through. The book seems to be out of print in the UK which is a great shame.

[Emmkay · Rating 4 out of 5]

The sole library copy I could get is dated and unappealing, and Isabel Huggan isn’t a name I was familiar with, but the blurbs on the back extolling this collection of linked short stories are from Alice Munro, Timothy Findlay, and Robertson Davies. And it was terrific.

Elizabeth is growing up in midcentury Garten, a small town outside Toronto in the Kitchener-Waterloo area. She is the somewhat alienated and awkward only child of Frank, a banker, and Mavis, a housewife who fondly recalls her single years working as a secretary on Bay Street in the city and complains on the phone to her friends about her unmanageable child. They are not particularly fun-loving parents and Elizabeth doesn’t see herself as especially loveable or loved. I enjoyed the sense of place, as I recognized the midcentury version of places I know. Each story was wonderful - absorbing, not flashy, with just the right kind of detail about both the exterior and interior world to give it heft and realness.

[Rebecca · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book so much that I'm furious--why doesn't anyone know about her? Why are her books on the verge of going out of print? I mean, Alice Munro blurbed her! Munro doesn't blurb anybody!

This is one of the best collections of short stories that I have ever read. As soon as I finished reading it, I started it again from the beginning. These stories are just so utterly honest about what it is to live life as a child, and how it is filled with comparison, ranking, hatred, guilt, fear, knowing that you are supposed to be feeling something other than what you actually are feeling, and knowing way more about what's going on than the adults think you do.

This collection should be read alongside of other modern masters--Munro, Bambara, Diaz, Baldwin. It particularly reminds me of "Drown," by Junot Diaz and "Gorilla, My Love," by Toni Cade Bambara, because they are all devastatingly good at writing about childhood.

[Diane Barnes · Rating 4 out of 5]

These are 8 inter-related stories about Elizabeth, growing up in a small town in Canada, feeling out of place in school, misunderstood by her parents, and like all of us, trying to figure it all out without actually having all the information needed to do so. Elizabeth's interior life will sound familiar to a lot of women readers, and these stories are so well written they can make you laugh and cry at the same time. Highly recommended, but may be hard to find.

[Kizz Robinson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Takes place in Canada in the 50s and yet so vividly perfect in its rendering of adolescence that I almost had to stop reading.

[Katie Koso · Rating 1 out of 5]

The characters were a little too real. All of them seemed like terrible people except the mentally handicapped cousin. Characters and their problems were introduced but their problems were not resolved (similar to real life, I guess). This book was stressful to read. The only reason I finished it at all was because it was so short.

[Story · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very enjoyable set of interlinked coming-of-age stories.

[Vincent Desjardins · Rating 4 out of 5]

For once, a novel (in this case a series of connected short stories) where the book’s back cover blurbs didn’t let me down. As a couple of the blurbs suggest, this is an unflinching look at growing up, as unsentimental a look at childhood as you are likely to find. As the title suggests, the stories all center around a young girl named Elizabeth from the time she is around 7 or 8 until her later teenage years. I couldn’t always relate to Elizabeth and at times I actually disliked her (it’s hard to warm up to a character, no matter how immature, who has fantasies of strangling her pet rabbit) but in spite of the character’s flaws (or maybe because of them), I found myself gripped by these stories. The author, Isabel Huggan writes perceptively about the pains of growing up and her character, Elizabeth is a narrator who doesn’t hold back about revealing her own faults. If we could read people’s minds, few of us would probably have friends. Who among us hasn’t been judgmental in our thoughts or entertained a dark and wicked fantasy, even if its just for the fleetest of moments? Elizabeth doesn’t spare us these thoughts and that’s what makes this book feel so honest.

[Stef Smulders · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very entertaining snapshots of the life of Elizabeth growing up in a boring Canadian middle-class family the restrictions she tries to escape from. Light-hearted, well-written with excellent psychological observations and adding depth every now and then, avoiding charicature. The writer is little known unfortunately, deserves to be read more widely.

[Izzy Barandas · Rating 5 out of 5]

i purchased this at a bookstore because the authors name was isabel. but i actually really enjoyed it

[Michelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

I picked this up in Brickbat Books for my lady nook. The back cover blurbs from fellow Canadians Robertson Davies and Alice Munro were glowing, and the couple of pages I read grabbed me right off. Happily, I was not disappointed. This is one of the best portraits I have read of growing up in a strict midcentury household with parents who want to do right by you but are hampered by their rigid conventionality. It's pretty brutal at times but never self-pitying. Why have I never heard of Huggan?

[Juliet · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you like Alice Munro, you'll like these. Elizabeth lives in a really small Canadian town with parents who aren't very thrilled with her existence, and she discovers unpleasant truths about family members, cousins, fellow citizens of Garten, teachers, and of course herself. Told with a sharp eye and a keen intellect that sees relationships among things and people, these stories make for delicious reading.

[Kirsty Keddie · Rating 5 out of 5]

This wonderful book of short stories is out of print in the U.K. which is a shame as I think they deserve to be timeless classics.

The second-hand copy that I bought from Canada has the following handwritten inscription on the front page which I think sums it up perfectly: ‘Dear Suzie - Chuck and I loved this book, it’s the dark side of childhood that we don’t want to admit to ourselves…’

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

Why isn't Isabel Huggan as celebrated as Alice Munro or Mavis Gallant? 'The Elizabeth Stories', first published in 1984, is surely one of the unsung classics of modern Canadian literature. Short stories don't get much better than this.

[Cindy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've had this book on my shelf for decades. I'm not usually a big short story fan, but I loved this book. Huggan's writing is wonderful and spot-on regarding growing up in the 50s and 60s. This book was written in 1984.

[Büşra · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book contains too much sexuality, i think. It's too far relationship between people.

[Braulio · Rating 4 out of 5]

La escritora nos presenta la historia de Elizabeth, una joven puberta/adolecente que atraviesa difíciles situaciones; todo a través de pequeños fragmentos no cronológicos, pero que sin duda cumplen con el propósito de entretener.
Es una lectura muy sencilla, con tramas y personajes muy simples. No creo que sea muy trascendental, pero para empezar en el género está muy bien. Además de que el hecho de que la novela esté escrita como si fueran cuentos te ayuda mucho a no sentir presión a medida que avanza la trama, ya que cada cuento es una historia diferente.
Por eso cuatro estrellas.

[Yunus Emre · Rating 2 out of 5]

Elizabeth'in hayatını anılarından oluşan hayat öyküsü.Okumaya değer mi tartışılır.Kitapta kendime dair pek bir şey bulamamış olmam üzdü.

[Priscilla · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well written story of an adolescent girl. I'm sure it was startling at the time it was published but was less revelatory in 2021.

[Clementine · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 🌟

[Lu Berenstein · Rating 4 out of 5]

Muy bellamente escrito, nostálgico, duro por momentos, honesto. Lectura ágil y atrapante. Muy recomendable

[Dana]

**read Secrets**

[Stephanie Weima · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved it! A new/old author for me.

[tat]

Read “secrets”

[Angie · Rating 4 out of 5]

My favorite story from this collection was “Sorrows of the Flesh.”

[Alice Charlotte · Rating 4 out of 5]

Me encantó ✨

[ava ☆ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lmao i picked this book off of the used bookshelf at prairie lights for a blackout poem activity

[María Ángeles Gómez · Rating 4 out of 5]

Muy recomendable

[behsforensics]

Team owns Celia Behind Me by Huggan, Isabel digitally.

[Ian · Rating 4 out of 5]

Iconic collection of linked coming-of-age stories by one of Canada's best writers. This is one of those rare books that sets a standard to which others must aspire. Narrated in precise, metaphor-rich language that leaves an indelible impression on the reader. A classic of Canadian literature and absolutely essential reading for anyone who wants to write short stories.