Carol Shields Collected Stories [Paperback]

Carol Shields (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 7, 2005

For the first time all of Carol Shields' remarkable short stories -- some previously unpublished -- are gathered together in one paperback volume. In The Collected Stories we bring together Carol Shields' original short story volumes,Various Miracles, The Orange Fish and Dressing Up for the Carnival, some portions of which have never before been published in the UK. To these wonderful shorter fictions, we add a chapter from Carol Shields' last, unfinished, novel Segue, making this an essential and comprehensive overview of a brilliant writer. In all of these shorter works, Shields combines the dazzling virtuosity and wise maturity that she brought to so many readers in novels such as The Stone Diaries and Unless. With her exquisite eye for detail and her eagerness to explore the most fundamental of relationships and the wildest of coincidences, she illuminates the absurdities and miracles that grace all of our lives. Playful, charming, acutely observed and generous of spirit, this collection of stories will delight and enchant readers the world over.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Carol Shields's collection of short stories is the definitive anthology of this genre of her work. It contains all previously published stories and one entirely new: "Segue," her last work. She died of cancer in July of 2003, after fighting the good fight, for the second time. The book is introduced by Margaret Atwood, another widely read Canadian author, who was a longtime friend and admirer of Shields.

The stories are truly remarkable, combining great humor with poignant observation--an exploration of the idiosyncracies of our friends, lovers, spouses, and children, and the gift of being a true storyteller. She glories in writing about the mundane: grocery shopping, ballet lessons, mowing the lawn; and in the quirky, as in a young boy's grandfather who becomes a "naturist," a grandmother who was North America's Turkey Queen in Ramona, California, and wore a dress made completely of turkey feathers. Her writing is full of wonder and serendipity: "Roger, aged thirty, employed by the Gas Board, is coming out of a corner grocers carrying a mango in his left hand. He went in to buy an apple and came out with this." Now, what will turn out to be important here: Roger's age, his employment, why the mango instead of the apple, and, is he left-handed? Carol Shields will sort it all out for the reader, in the most enjoyable way possible. While her stories are accessible, they are never trivial. Each one is finely crafted, illuminating something about a person, a relationship, an event.

In "Segue," Max and Jane begin their Sunday morning buying bread and flowers; he, an accomplished novelist, she, a writer of sonnets. They proceed to luncheon at their daughter's house, return home to conversation, reading, roast chicken, and evening reverie. Jane reflects upon her aging body: "My aging is me too, as well as the subject of my current sonnet. Only two years ago the idea of aging belonged to the whole world. It was background. I hadn't been touched by it then. Now I am." Touched by age and encroaching illness, Carol Shields wrote one last marvelous story.

In her foreword, Margaret Atwood, who visited Shields only two months before she died, writes: "We did not speak of her illness. She preferred to be treated as a person who was living, not one who was dying." This attitude of mind is reflected in the fabric of all her work, in its clarity, its appreciation of the absurd, and in her understanding of the human condition. --Valerie Ryan --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

Shields, who died in 2003, was best known for her novels (The Stone Diaries; Unless), though she published three collections of stories over as many decades, here elegantly gathered and introduced by fellow Canadian and friend Margaret Atwood. Appearing first is her last unpublished tale, "Segue," about an aging couple in failing health - he a famous novelist, she a writer of sonnets - who grow apart as they take "responsibility for [their] own dying bodies." The story serves as a poignant tribute. Overall, Shields's touch is gorgeously light, her tales capturing brief, evanescent moments in the busy lives of couples, mothers and lonely wives. If a few entries seem too brief or lack development, "Hazel" (from The Orange Fish) demonstrates all the elements of Shields's mastery: an ordinary widow, perhaps too polite for her own good, finds a satisfying job as an itinerant kitchen demonstrator and discovers that her timidity and self-effacement can actually be turned to her advantage. From the same collection, the story "Collision" draws on Shields's extended travels and is set in a "small ellipsoid state in eastern Europe," where two lonely people of exotically different background and language collide on a rainy night; the story pursues a separate "biography" of each of the lovers with "every narrative scrap... equally honored." In "Edith-Esther," a story from Shields's last collection, the author prophetically portrays the eponymous protagonist, an 80-year-old novelist, as a "rare bird," pestered by her biographer for "some spiritual breeze" he can put into his book about her. She resists, but the biographer reworks her life the way he wants and in the end, to her dismay, refashions her work as uplifting - the last thing she intended it to be. Uplifting or not, this is a volume full of grace and wisdom.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 608 pages
• Publisher: Harper Perennial (March 7, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0007192061
• ISBN-13: 978-0007192069
• Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 5 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.9 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #10,371,599 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A final bouquet, August 24, 2005

By 

LiLa "Library Lady" (Monterey, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Collected Stories (Hardcover)

From a too-early departed Canadian treasure. Shields could turn a phrase, or take her reader from a wink of an eye to a catch in the throat, like no one else. She was a trickster of a storyteller - start you off slow, comfortable and easy - then wham! Off you'd go into a character, or life, that delights and surprises.

The first two lines of "Pardon":
On Friday afternoon Milly stopped at Ernie's Cards 'n' Things to buy a mea culpa card for her father-in-law, whom she had apparently insulted.
"Sorry," Ernie's wife said in her testy way."We're all out."

I love the off-handed humor and grace of the phrase "apparently insulted". This last collection is a departing gift, and should be read accordingly. Each page turned slowly, each paragraph unwrapped and savored, each word read as though it was the last - "part of the bliss they would one day gladly surrender."

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Languid, Seductive, Insightful, August 9, 2006

By 

Linda A. Lavid "Writer" (Buffalo, NY United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Collected Stories (P.S.) (Paperback)

This is a wonderful collection. Each reflective,gentle story pulls you forward with poetic, awe-inspiring detail. A joy at every level.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Beautiful stories from a gifted late writer..., February 3, 2006

By 

CoffeeGurl - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Collected Stories (P.S.) (Paperback)

Carol Shields died of Breast Cancer three years ago, a sad loss of a gifted, wonderful Canadian writer. Collected Stories features several of the most wonderful stories I have read. Her quirky humor comes to life in this wonderful collection. Though the stories may come across as incredibly mundane because it deals with every day, ordinary people, said stories give a wonderful portrayal of characters you can definitely relate to. My favorite stories are "Invitations," "Taking the Train," "Pardon," "Segue," "Fuel for the Fire," and "Our Men and Women." This is a large collection of previously released stories and her last effort before she passed away called "Segue." This is a beautiful collection you won't want to miss. I read The Stone Diaries when it first came out eleven years ago and my impression now is the same one I had when I read the aforementioned novel: Carol Shields was a master storyteller.