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The Path of Totality: New and Selected Stories (Viking Penguin $29.99)
In The Path of Totality: New and Selected Stories (Viking Penguin $29.99) Audrey Thomas is often describing female protagonists in Africa, Mexico and Greece as a means of exploring their identities. "Who are we when removed from family, friends, house, street, job, city and mother-tongue?";
Settings in non-English-speaking countries frequently allow her to exploit her fondness for word-play.
Thomas ends this collection on what she describes in her preface as "a note of quiet contentment"; with a love story. While it is good to see a writer in a mellow mood at a late stage in her career, what long-time admirers of Thomas cherish is her ascerbic wit, the sometimes savage indignation, and the bitterness that remains on the palate like a dash of good vinegar.
The 17 stories from previous collections include her earliest published story, 'If One Green Bottle...,' (The Atlantic, 1965) as well as such familiar masterpieces as 'Local Customs' and 'The Man with Clam Eyes.'
However, the three previously uncollected and the two new stories are so fresh and interesting that one wishes the balance of this collection had tipped more in favour of new material.
One of these, 'Volunteers,' is a dramatic monologue in which a woman observing a mentally handicapped child, plays a game of What Might Have Been by imagining how their life together might have unfolded if, instead of rejecting such a child, she had had the courage to raise it to adulthood.
While Thomas has always depicted women's lives with a frank awareness of gender inequity and discrimination, she has rarely made such a bold political statement as 'Bear Country,' an uncollected story that first appeared in Saturday Night. This story takes place in Montreal and its references to the massacre of women there by a lone male suggests that it was written as a response to that event. The subject matter could have produced sentimental and heavy-handed results, as with 'Volunteers'. It is a hallmark of Thomas' talent that she handles such potentially dangerous material with verve.
Wilma, the protagonist, is "in real life"; a performance artist who can't seem to get away from feminist pieces. After hearing a professor say the air is putrid with feminism, she devises a skit based on the Pollution Scoreboard at the McGill metro. Instead of showing levels of pollutants the scoreboard shows levels of feminism for the day.
The second part of the skit has Mulroney and Bush Sr. (in masks) engaging in an emergency summit to deal with the problem. In a final skit, based on the familiar YOU ARE IN BEAR COUNTRY pamphlet, Thomas plays with a series of bilingual puns.
"We are in bear country,"; says a group of women to the sound of bear bells.
"This country is ours,"; replies a group of men.
Audrey Thomas divides her time between houses on Galiano Island and in Victoria. She is the recipient of the new $15, 000 W.O. Mitchell Award and has won three Ethel Wilson Fiction Prizes. 0-670-89647-0
[Joan Givner / BCBW 2001]
Settings in non-English-speaking countries frequently allow her to exploit her fondness for word-play.
Thomas ends this collection on what she describes in her preface as "a note of quiet contentment"; with a love story. While it is good to see a writer in a mellow mood at a late stage in her career, what long-time admirers of Thomas cherish is her ascerbic wit, the sometimes savage indignation, and the bitterness that remains on the palate like a dash of good vinegar.
The 17 stories from previous collections include her earliest published story, 'If One Green Bottle...,' (The Atlantic, 1965) as well as such familiar masterpieces as 'Local Customs' and 'The Man with Clam Eyes.'
However, the three previously uncollected and the two new stories are so fresh and interesting that one wishes the balance of this collection had tipped more in favour of new material.
One of these, 'Volunteers,' is a dramatic monologue in which a woman observing a mentally handicapped child, plays a game of What Might Have Been by imagining how their life together might have unfolded if, instead of rejecting such a child, she had had the courage to raise it to adulthood.
While Thomas has always depicted women's lives with a frank awareness of gender inequity and discrimination, she has rarely made such a bold political statement as 'Bear Country,' an uncollected story that first appeared in Saturday Night. This story takes place in Montreal and its references to the massacre of women there by a lone male suggests that it was written as a response to that event. The subject matter could have produced sentimental and heavy-handed results, as with 'Volunteers'. It is a hallmark of Thomas' talent that she handles such potentially dangerous material with verve.
Wilma, the protagonist, is "in real life"; a performance artist who can't seem to get away from feminist pieces. After hearing a professor say the air is putrid with feminism, she devises a skit based on the Pollution Scoreboard at the McGill metro. Instead of showing levels of pollutants the scoreboard shows levels of feminism for the day.
The second part of the skit has Mulroney and Bush Sr. (in masks) engaging in an emergency summit to deal with the problem. In a final skit, based on the familiar YOU ARE IN BEAR COUNTRY pamphlet, Thomas plays with a series of bilingual puns.
"We are in bear country,"; says a group of women to the sound of bear bells.
"This country is ours,"; replies a group of men.
Audrey Thomas divides her time between houses on Galiano Island and in Victoria. She is the recipient of the new $15, 000 W.O. Mitchell Award and has won three Ethel Wilson Fiction Prizes. 0-670-89647-0
[Joan Givner / BCBW 2001]
Submitted on June 24, 2003 in By David.
