Across the Bridge: Stories (Paperback)

~ Mavis Gallant (Author) "About a year after the death of M. Carette, his three survivors-Berthe and her little sister, Marie, and their mother-had to leave the comfortable flat..." (more)
Key Phrases: Uncle Gildas, Uncle Victor, Aunt Rosalie (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The 11 stories in this collection demonstrate Gallant's capacious knowledge of human nature, refracted through her ironic views of the battle of the sexes and of the conflict between generations. Penetrating and insightful, these tales reflect the sensibilities of conservative Catholic Montrealers and Parisians coping with the crises of modern life. The husbands and fathers portrayed here prefer their women placid, pretty and without intellectual ambition. And with few exceptions the women are compliant, either out of a general inbred dreaminess or a pathetic lack of opportunity or gumption. The most captivating characters are women who evade this fate. Berthe Carette, whose family is the subject of four interlocked stories, defies the church, remains unwed and independent and sleeps with married men. (Her purposefully helpless, blandly demanding sister Marie also gets her own way, however.) Bright, perceptive Nora Abbott, the teenaged protagonist of "The Fenton Child," cleverly deals with the Montreal-Anglo disdain of French-speaking natives, and also learns how to handle her scheming father. The French heroine of the title story, romantic, naive Sylvie, regrets her moment of rebellion until she finds the "true life that was almost ready to let me in." Gallant's sharp tongue cuts through churchly cant, moral hypocrisy and the myth of male superiority; her finely honed prose captures the small details that illuminate a life. This collection will add to her deserved reputation as a superb practitioner of her craft.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Library Journal

Gallant's elegant, witty tales of place and person weave together small domestic moments described in careful detail. Her characters are either on the fringes of Parisian or Canadian gentility, or are Eastern European immigrants, well out of it; their choices of dress, address, words, restaurants, even the dishes served to dinner guests, reveal the subtleties of unalterable social status that circumscribe their lives. They care greatly and elaborately about appearances: sisters Berthe and Marie, who are featured in several of the stories, are cautioned by their widowed seamstress mother never to reveal her occupation but to say only that she was "clever with her hands." In the title piece, a perceptive but passive young woman moves not unhappily toward a probably loveless marriage. Gallant beautifully structures her stories (most of which appeared in The New Yorker ) and depicts characters and situations with insight and irony. Recommended for most collections.
- Eleanor Mitchell, Arizona State Univ. West, Phoenix
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 198 pages
• Publisher: Carroll & Graf Publishers (October 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0786701439
• ISBN-13: 978-0786701438
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.5 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: No customer reviews yet. Be the first.
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,398,353 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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