Shena Mackay is frequently and copiously praised - Elle deemed her "the best writer in the world today." It's no wonder, considering the gallery of strange and memorable characters who populate the stories in The World's Smallest Unicorn. These include a would-be biographer who visits a home for retired clowns; an expatriot who returns from Hong Kong to find his family and London dramatically changed; an elderly woman, once a fearless journalist, paralyzed at the thought of meeting the daughter of her dearest friend; and a budding writer who becomes an amanuensis for a famous woman novelist - with disastrous results. In these feisty new tales, Mackay combines the mysterious and the everyday to scintillating effect. Praise for Shena Mackay: "A powerfully invasive writer of remarkable dash, sudden efflorescence, and earthly depth. She is funny, satirical, and yet forgiving." - Vogue
Book Description
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Londoner Mackay's brilliant collection of stories about life's odd pots should add to her reputation as a brilliant satirist of social behavior. The 11 stories about life's lost souls and losers, scarred by drink, money, power or any number of other follies, capture a wide range of voices, settings and styles within finely tuned tales bearing one commonality: their excellent surprise endings. In the hilarious "Barbarians," Ian and Barbara Donaldson own an eponymous, fabulously successful children's clothing company, which has spawned a mail-order empire as well as a bevy of political, racial and labor issues. The punch line here lies in young Jack Donaldson's innocent rhyme about babies, unaware that both his parents are silently hoping that their extramarital liaisons have not resulted in any additional offspring. In "The Index of Embarrassment," Freddy, a gay man, visits his eccentric and prickly Uncle Bob out of pity and guilt. Bob is the author of The Definitive Index of Embarrassment, an obscure chronicle of all things gross and disgusting. When Bob's neighbor Dennis is discovered dead, the other characters are swamped in grief and contemplate their own mortality. Meanwhile, Uncle Bob's pressing concern is getting his ladder back, lent to the now expired Dennis some weeks earlier. A broad range of charactersDincluding the publishing executive who takes a nightmarish trip to India in search of an author whose next novel will undoubtedly be a bestsellerDtestify to Mackay's remarkable empathy for quirky people trapped in mundane circumstances. (Oct.) FYI: Mackay's 1996 novel, The Orchard on Fire, was shortlisted for the Booker Prize.
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Booklist
Scottish author Mackay has an eye for the small moment and quirky detail, which helps define her characters, many of them a bit off-center themselves. In story after story in her new collection, pretensions are deflated, expectations are thwarted, and the ordinary is juxtaposed with the exotic and even absurd. In the title story, the glamorous sheen of Teddy's life in Hong Kong seems to offer his sister-in-law Fan a brief respite from her ordinary middle-class existence. In "Crossing the Border," when Flora goes to visit her great uncle at the Grimaldi House for retired clowns she is greeted by a staff that is briskly efficient in dealing with death. Several of Mackay's characters inhabit worlds of their own, such as reclusive Uncle Bob in the "The Index of Embarrassent," obsessively compiling his masterwork on embarrassing moments. Although her characters are often foolish and almost always disappointed, Mackay is never cruel; and her inventive use of colors, clothing, food, and the jumble of interiors and surroundings serves to enliven the prose and sharpen the view. Mary Ellen Quinn
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
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