Collected Stories by Mavis Gallant

Mavis Gallant is my favourite short story writer. I know this now, after devouring page after page of this enormous book. The book is like an expensive box of chocolates, big and cubic in red and black with gold letters, decadent and indulgent and leaving you wanting more. Perhaps someone could publish more of her excellent stories in smaller volumes, less heavy on the chest while reading in bed, less difficult to prop open.

But you won't be tempted to press flowers between the pages. Mavis Gallant is like a lyrical anthropologist, describing the world around her in intricate detail with scathingly accurate statements. No sentimental moments, no romantic pining to be found here, which is perhaps why she is my father's favourite writer as well. Could we say her sense of pathos is nearly masculine? But now I am getting tangled in myself - let's just say you'll gasp at her insight, and her rapidfire writing style and admire the career she has invented for herself in a difficult, male- dominated milieu.

Her world is the hyperrealist universe of European expatriates, displaced immigrants, Parisians, and the occasional Quebecois. Consider this randomly selected passage, taken from a story called Remission:

"When Ron left, Barbara marched the children up to Rivabella and made them look at the church. They had seen it, but she made them look again. She held the mistaken belief that religion was taught in French state schools, and she wanted to arm them. The children knew by now that what their mother called "France" was not really France down here but a set of rules, a code for doing things, such as how to recite the multiplication table or label a wine."

You can open this anthology on any page and find descriptions of how people think and then again how they are perceived to be thinking - multi-layered psychology that can only enhance your own way of seeing your world. What I am also pining for is the Mavis Gallant autobiography, because although it is immediately clear that she can see through everyone, you can't help wondering what she would say about herself.

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