Double-Voicing the Canadian Short Story

by Laurie Kruk

Overview

Double-Voicing the Canadian Short Story is the first comparative study of eight internationally and nationally acclaimed writers of short fiction: Sandra Birdsell, Timothy Findley, Jack Hodgins, Thomas King, Alistair MacLeod, Olive Senior, Carol Shields and Guy Vanderhaeghe. With the 2013 Nobel Prize for Literature going to Alice Munro, the “master of the contemporary short story,” this art form is receiving the recognition that has been its due and—as this book demonstrates—Canadian writers have long excelled in it. From theme to choice of narrative perspective, from emphasis on irony, satire and parody to uncovering the multiple layers that make up contemporary Canadian English, the short story provides a powerful vehicle for a distinctively Canadian “double-voicing”. The stories discussed here are compelling reflections on our most intimate roles and relationships and Kruk offers a thoughtful juxtaposition of themes of gender, mothers and sons, family storytelling, otherness in Canada and the politics of identity to name but a few. As a multi-author study, Double-Voicing the Canadian Short Story is broad in scope and its readings are valuable to Canadian literature as a whole, making the book of interest to students of Canadian literature or the short story, and to readers of both.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780776623238
Publisher:	University of Ottawa Press
Publication date:	05/17/2016
Series:	Canadian Literature Collection
Pages:	240
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 7.90(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

Laurie Kruk is the author of The Voice is the Story: Conversations with Canadian Writers of Short Fiction (Mosaic, 2003), which features six of the eight authors included in Double-Voicing the Canadian Short Story. She is also a well-published poet: Theories of the World (Netherlandic, 1992), Loving the Alien (YSP, 2006) and My Mother Did Not Tell Stories (Demeter, 2012). Associate Professor at Nipissing University in North Bay, Ontario, she specializes in Canadian literature, Native literature, women’s writing and the short story.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements ix

Introduction: Double-Voicing the Canadian Short Story 1

1 Hands and Mirrors: Reflections on Gender in the Short Stories of MacLeod and Findley 25

2 Mothering Sons: Stories by Findley, Hodgins, and MacLeod Uncover the Mother's Double Voice 43

3 Storykeepers: Doubling Family Voice in Stories by King, Senior, MacLeod, and Vanderhaeghe 65

4 Pinking the Triangle, Drawing the Circle: Double-Voicing Family in Findley's Short Fiction 91

5 Various Otherness: Shields, King, Hodgins, and Birdsell Double-Voice the Short Story 111

6 Innovation and Reflection in the New Millennium: The Double Voice in Shields's Short Fiction 133

7 Double-Voicing through the Mariposan Looking Glass 151

L'Envoi: The Bus to North Bay 171

Works Cited 181

Index 199