Great review of the first story in Mavis Gallant’s Paris Stories. One caveat however – not every story in the collection reaches this high standard.
The first sentence: “Now that they are out of world affairs and back where they started, Peter Frazier’s wife says, ‘Everybody else did well in the international thing except us.'”
I know, I know, let the protests begin: this is a short story, and not a novel — which I’ve led you to believe is the subject of review on this blog. However, this premier short story in Gallant’s publication is not enough to lead in to the whole collection. Though its sense of intangible tragedy is a reoccurring theme throughout the series, my respect for Gallant and concordant opinion on the nature of short stories limits this post just to a preview of story numero uno. Gallant writes, at the end of her collection (spoiler alert!) that short stories should not be digested one right after another, that they are not like chapters of novels. “Read one,” she…
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