Red Plaid Shirt [Mass Market Paperback]

Diane Schoemperlen (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 24, 2003

Award-winning author Diane Schoemperlen's twenty-one exceptional stories showcase all the magic, charm, and intelligence of her novel Our Lady of the Lost and Found. Written over the past twenty years, and drawing upon a wide range of themes, subjects, and styles, these thoughtful selections are infused with Schoemperlen's freshness of observation and unique gift for narrative. "Losing Ground" is a remarkable coming-of-age story in which the harsh realities of death and discrimination start to impinge on a young girl's life. In "The Man of My Dreams," the truths of a disintegrating relationship counterpose and merge with the dream world of the narrator. And in the title story, items of a woman's clothing carry the memories of past years, illuminating the truths of life-its sorrows, its mysteries, and its consolations.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

This collection of Schoemperlen's short stories spans 20 years and showcases the gradual evolution of her inventive style. "Losing Ground," written in 1976, is a nostalgic family chronicle whose characters are so carefully limned the reader quickly knows them. Prophetic dreams run in and out of several stories; parental indiscretions and the conundrums of long-standing affairs are common themes. "Modern men . . . were a bunch of malcontents. They wanted too much or too little, or they wanted somebody else altogether," summarizes one weary narrator. The strength of female friendships winds through the title story, as jewel-like vignettes of the narrator's past experiences with abuse, degradation, abortion, and, finally, hope, each now associated with a piece of clothing, are strung together like beads. Later stories rely more on the narrative tricks for which the author is best known, such as forging a clever parody from a common middle-school word problem. It is as if Schoemperlen has changed to a different camera lens but is still zeroing in on those fragments of everyday lives that so often go unnoticed. Deborah Donovan
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

About the Author

Diane Schoemperlen is the author of Our Lady of the Lost and Found; In the Language of Love; and five short story collections, including Forms of Devotion, which won the Governor General's Award for Fiction in 1998; and The Man of My Dreams, which was nominated for a Governor General's Award and a Trillium Award.

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics) (June 24, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0142003204
• ISBN-13: 978-0142003206
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 6.4 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.7 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,986,192 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars gentle cartwheels of life's events, January 4, 2010

By 

bookof bookiest "bookbookbook" (Nova Scotia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Red Plaid Shirt (Mass Market Paperback)

On almost every page I lay my head back and thought over a sentence I read and tried to apply it to my life or someone else's and I love when a book does that. I felt drawn in and emotionally invested. And it made me feel like life is a tapestry and really it is ok if it has some unravelling threads. This is what I got from these stories and I guarantee anyone who reads these stories will come away feeling better and freer about life.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Primer on writing outside the box, April 2, 2004

By 

ostawookiee "ostawookiee" (Winston-Salem, NC USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Red Plaid Shirt (Mass Market Paperback)

Though I didn't find all the stories in themselves interesting, what was great about this book was the complete originality of each story in terms of style and structure. Schoemperlen explores many different and unique ways to present a story, showing that it's possible to successfully write a story without following a cookie-cutter format.