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The Collected Stories of Mavis Gallant
In these 52 stories, which were written in over almost as many years and published mostly in the New Yorker, Gallant shows herself to be one of the century's most accomplished, and least conventional, writers of short fiction. Gallant was never afraid to push the boundaries of the many of her longer stories stray into novella territory, and even her shortest pieces often defy the expectations created in the first few pages. Gallant's characters are almost all exiles of one sort or another, 20th century seekers often marked by World War II and its aftermath. Gallant, a Canadian expatriate, spent much of her life in Paris, and that city of exiles and emigres provides the setting for some of her most memorable stories.
1000 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1996
225 people are currently reading
2,601 people want to read
About the author
Mavis Gallant
85books245followersCanadian journalist and fiction writer. In her twenties, Gallant worked as a reporter for the Montreal Standard. She left journalism in 1950 to pursue fiction writing. To that end, always needing autonomy and privacy, she moved to France.
In 1981, Gallant was honoured by her native country and made an Officer of the Order of Canada for her contribution to literature. That same year she also received the Governor General's Award for literature for her collection of stories, Home Truths. In 1983-84, she returned to Canada as the University of Toronto's writer-in-residence. In 1991 Queen’s University awarded her an honorary LL.D. In 1993 she was promoted to Companion of the Order of Canada.
In 1989, Gallant was made a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. In 2000, she won the Matt Cohen Prize, and in 2002 the Rea Award for the Short Story. The O. Henry Prize Stories of 2003 was dedicated to her. In 2004, Gallant was awarded a Lannan Literary Fellowship.
With Alice Munro, Gallant was one of a few Canadian authors whose works regularly appeared in The New Yorker. Many of Gallant’s stories had debuted in the magazine before subsequently being published in a collection.
Although she maintained her Canadian citizenship, Gallant continued to live in Paris, France since the 1950s.
On November 8, 2006, Mavis Gallant received the Prix Athanase-David from the government of her native province of Quebec. She was the first author writing in English to receive this award in its 38 years of existence.
In 1981, Gallant was honoured by her native country and made an Officer of the Order of Canada for her contribution to literature. That same year she also received the Governor General's Award for literature for her collection of stories, Home Truths. In 1983-84, she returned to Canada as the University of Toronto's writer-in-residence. In 1991 Queen’s University awarded her an honorary LL.D. In 1993 she was promoted to Companion of the Order of Canada.
In 1989, Gallant was made a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. In 2000, she won the Matt Cohen Prize, and in 2002 the Rea Award for the Short Story. The O. Henry Prize Stories of 2003 was dedicated to her. In 2004, Gallant was awarded a Lannan Literary Fellowship.
With Alice Munro, Gallant was one of a few Canadian authors whose works regularly appeared in The New Yorker. Many of Gallant’s stories had debuted in the magazine before subsequently being published in a collection.
Although she maintained her Canadian citizenship, Gallant continued to live in Paris, France since the 1950s.
On November 8, 2006, Mavis Gallant received the Prix Athanase-David from the government of her native province of Quebec. She was the first author writing in English to receive this award in its 38 years of existence.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 48 reviews
December 19, 2024
“In those days there was almost no such thing as a “Canadian�. You were Canadian-born, and a British subject, too, and you had a third label with no consular reality. In Canada you were also whatever your father happened to be, which in my case was English. He was half Scot, but English by birth, by mother, by instinct. I did not feel a scrap British or English, but I was not American either. In American schools I had refused to salute� from “Youth is Pleasure.�
This mammoth 887 page short story and novella collection really forced me to pay attention to the language and stories of Mavis Gallant.
It’s a masterpiece of storytelling, the most challenging read of 2024 that I’ve had, and nothing else has come close to the emotions I had as I read these stories with a microscope- every word, every minute detail truly meant something.
The payoff was utterly rewarding, and a collection that begs to be read by those who love strong writing and a detached sense of narrative.
The novellas also read like long, gorgeous sad novels of both mind numbingness and the process of grieving for lost countries and displacement.
I first learned about Ms. Gallant’s work through Jhumpa Lahiri. I read that Gallant had been a gigantic influence on her fiction writing.
As I finished all these stories I saw parallels of how Gallant influenced Lahiri, especially in writing about characters trapped between exile, homesickness and assimilating in different cultures and languages.
Gallant’s own life story being from Montreal, and living in Paris from journalist to full time writer is reflected in this collection.
Spanning from the 1930s till the 1990s- every story is a gem and here are some standouts. There are the themes of having survived World War II where characters often struggle with a sense of trauma and loss.
“The Moslem Wife� and “The Four Seasons� from the 1930s are stories about class divides and characters trapped in their precarious circumstances in which class and society prevent them from living their dreams.
The leading character of Netta being called a moslem wife is a metaphor of a woman trapped in her circumstances and inability to have agency, mirroring the stereotype of Middle Eastern Women who are subservient to their men. “The Four Seasons� is about the hapless Carmela who becomes a young housekeeper to a family living in France, who must often cross to the Italian border to get rations. She’s made herself numb to the loss of her family as she tries to navigate a world that does not want her in it.
Other stories such as “Senior Pinedo�, “Baum Gabriel�, “Speck’s Idea�, “From the Fifteenth District�, “The Pegnitz Junction� all establish themes of displacement and disorientation of all the characters involved.
Weaving setting from Montreal to Paris, to London, New York, and Philadelphia there’s a lingering sense of loneliness written in cruel, clinical fashion, “the parting speech would spring from her like a separate Frances, sentences steamed across a swept sky. They were pure white, unblemished by love or compassion�(Gallant 361).
There is the masterful collection “Linnet Muir� about a plucky feminist heroine who refuses to listen to society’s dictations weaving from Paris to New York, “my route to the meeting place deviated, betrayed by stopped clocks was always downhill�(Gallant 701).
The memory story, “The Doctor� both about a childhood memory of a painting and the man Linnet’s parents once knew who came into their lives is a perfect metaphor of the attempt to remember and keep moments in one’s life that often disappear with time.
Fragmented, cold, and full of heartache- I was glad to have finally taken the time to read stories that are both prickly and brimming with sadness. These stories are not for the faint of heart, serious readers only. The heaviness lingers and it’s why the payoff of reading each novella and story is so crucial if you want to feel and savor every word.
I had to write down a lot of my thoughts here- or it will be one of those books that I read and loved, but forgotten due to an exhausted memory. Some of the stories were indeed hallucinatory and disorienting, “a mood that passes through you� (Jane Campion, referring to her film The Piano).
Link to an article linking Mavis Gallant and her influence on Jhumpa Lahiri:
Note: I highly recommend reading Jhumpa Lahiri’s short story trilogy, “Hema and Kaushik�. There are so many parallels to Gallant’s work.
This mammoth 887 page short story and novella collection really forced me to pay attention to the language and stories of Mavis Gallant.
It’s a masterpiece of storytelling, the most challenging read of 2024 that I’ve had, and nothing else has come close to the emotions I had as I read these stories with a microscope- every word, every minute detail truly meant something.
The payoff was utterly rewarding, and a collection that begs to be read by those who love strong writing and a detached sense of narrative.
The novellas also read like long, gorgeous sad novels of both mind numbingness and the process of grieving for lost countries and displacement.
I first learned about Ms. Gallant’s work through Jhumpa Lahiri. I read that Gallant had been a gigantic influence on her fiction writing.
As I finished all these stories I saw parallels of how Gallant influenced Lahiri, especially in writing about characters trapped between exile, homesickness and assimilating in different cultures and languages.
Gallant’s own life story being from Montreal, and living in Paris from journalist to full time writer is reflected in this collection.
Spanning from the 1930s till the 1990s- every story is a gem and here are some standouts. There are the themes of having survived World War II where characters often struggle with a sense of trauma and loss.
“The Moslem Wife� and “The Four Seasons� from the 1930s are stories about class divides and characters trapped in their precarious circumstances in which class and society prevent them from living their dreams.
The leading character of Netta being called a moslem wife is a metaphor of a woman trapped in her circumstances and inability to have agency, mirroring the stereotype of Middle Eastern Women who are subservient to their men. “The Four Seasons� is about the hapless Carmela who becomes a young housekeeper to a family living in France, who must often cross to the Italian border to get rations. She’s made herself numb to the loss of her family as she tries to navigate a world that does not want her in it.
Other stories such as “Senior Pinedo�, “Baum Gabriel�, “Speck’s Idea�, “From the Fifteenth District�, “The Pegnitz Junction� all establish themes of displacement and disorientation of all the characters involved.
Weaving setting from Montreal to Paris, to London, New York, and Philadelphia there’s a lingering sense of loneliness written in cruel, clinical fashion, “the parting speech would spring from her like a separate Frances, sentences steamed across a swept sky. They were pure white, unblemished by love or compassion�(Gallant 361).
There is the masterful collection “Linnet Muir� about a plucky feminist heroine who refuses to listen to society’s dictations weaving from Paris to New York, “my route to the meeting place deviated, betrayed by stopped clocks was always downhill�(Gallant 701).
The memory story, “The Doctor� both about a childhood memory of a painting and the man Linnet’s parents once knew who came into their lives is a perfect metaphor of the attempt to remember and keep moments in one’s life that often disappear with time.
Fragmented, cold, and full of heartache- I was glad to have finally taken the time to read stories that are both prickly and brimming with sadness. These stories are not for the faint of heart, serious readers only. The heaviness lingers and it’s why the payoff of reading each novella and story is so crucial if you want to feel and savor every word.
I had to write down a lot of my thoughts here- or it will be one of those books that I read and loved, but forgotten due to an exhausted memory. Some of the stories were indeed hallucinatory and disorienting, “a mood that passes through you� (Jane Campion, referring to her film The Piano).
Link to an article linking Mavis Gallant and her influence on Jhumpa Lahiri:
Note: I highly recommend reading Jhumpa Lahiri’s short story trilogy, “Hema and Kaushik�. There are so many parallels to Gallant’s work.
October 18, 2018
I read this a while ago but am always re-reading it, and every time I go back it amazes me. Gallant really was one of the greats, and if you haven't yet had the pleasure of these mordant, razor-sharp, disturbingly clairvoyant stories then I urge you to try just one, maybe 'Lena', after which you'll probably read at least a few more.
"It was shortly before her removal to the hospital that Magdalena learned about Juliette’s death. One of her doddering friends may have seen the notice in a newspaper. She at once resumed her place as my only spouse and widow-to-be. In fact, she had never relinquished it, but now the way back to me shone clear. The divorce, that wall of pagan darkness, had been torn down and dispersed with the concubine’s ashes. She saw me delivered from an adulterous and heretical alliance. It takes a convert to think “heretical� with a straight face. She could have seen Juliette burned at the stake without losing any sleep. It is another fact about converts that they make casual executioners. She imagined that I would come to her at once, but I went nowhere. Juliette had asked to be cremated, thinking of the purification of the flame, but the rite was accomplished by clanking, hidden, high-powered machinery that kept starting and stopping, on cycle. At its loudest, it covered the voice of the clergyman, who affirmed that Juliette was eyeing us with great goodwill from above, and it prevailed over Juliette’s favorite recordings of Mozart and Bach. Her ashes were placed in a numbered niche that I never saw, for at some point in the funeral service I lost consciousness and had to be carried out. This nightmare was dreamed in the crematorium chapel of Père Lachaise cemetery. I have not been back. It is far from where I live, and I think Juliette is not there, or anywhere. From the moment when her heart stopped, there has been nothing but silence."
"It was shortly before her removal to the hospital that Magdalena learned about Juliette’s death. One of her doddering friends may have seen the notice in a newspaper. She at once resumed her place as my only spouse and widow-to-be. In fact, she had never relinquished it, but now the way back to me shone clear. The divorce, that wall of pagan darkness, had been torn down and dispersed with the concubine’s ashes. She saw me delivered from an adulterous and heretical alliance. It takes a convert to think “heretical� with a straight face. She could have seen Juliette burned at the stake without losing any sleep. It is another fact about converts that they make casual executioners. She imagined that I would come to her at once, but I went nowhere. Juliette had asked to be cremated, thinking of the purification of the flame, but the rite was accomplished by clanking, hidden, high-powered machinery that kept starting and stopping, on cycle. At its loudest, it covered the voice of the clergyman, who affirmed that Juliette was eyeing us with great goodwill from above, and it prevailed over Juliette’s favorite recordings of Mozart and Bach. Her ashes were placed in a numbered niche that I never saw, for at some point in the funeral service I lost consciousness and had to be carried out. This nightmare was dreamed in the crematorium chapel of Père Lachaise cemetery. I have not been back. It is far from where I live, and I think Juliette is not there, or anywhere. From the moment when her heart stopped, there has been nothing but silence."
December 30, 2020
I was reading this volume on and off the whole year. Her stories are like little novels, perfectly composed with well developed characters. Real joy.
November 20, 2015
Because I loved her stories in The New Yorker, I felt I really needed to explore the totality of Gallant's short fiction. I'm glad I did. It was a dense, daunting read (887 pages). It took me nearly 6 months. One of the things that kept me going was the fact that her stories improved with (Gallant's) age. Her best work was in the twilight of her career, where she really learned how to trim things down to their bare bones--i.e. the essence of good short story writing.
April 14, 2025
Mavis Gallant is a wonderful writer, though I have to admit that reading so much of her at one go was too much. Her stories began to fall into somewhat predictable patterns. She was at her best in the 1970s. Her unique mixture of irony and pathos, her ability to capture not simply a moment in time, but entire lives � often moving forward and backwards and forwards again in their chronology, are an essential characteristic of her best work. That, and her ability to situate these lives within some of the trauma of the 20th century that is unrolling in the background.
Some of these stories I skipped, and many of them were only 4 or 4.5 stars. But my absolute favorites (5 stars or more) were:
“The Moslem Wife� (1976); “The Latehomecomer� (1974); “The Remission� (1979); “Irina� (1974); “Potter� (1977); Baum, Gabriel, 1935�()� (1979); and Speck’s Idea� (1979).
Some of the stories that I had read previously, in the NYRB collections, impressed me less the second time around.
Some of these stories I skipped, and many of them were only 4 or 4.5 stars. But my absolute favorites (5 stars or more) were:
“The Moslem Wife� (1976); “The Latehomecomer� (1974); “The Remission� (1979); “Irina� (1974); “Potter� (1977); Baum, Gabriel, 1935�()� (1979); and Speck’s Idea� (1979).
Some of the stories that I had read previously, in the NYRB collections, impressed me less the second time around.
Read
August 8, 2012I got this book because of an excerpt in The New Yorker of her forthcoming memoir. I hadn't heard of her and thought I should know who she is. I was hooked after the first page. This woman is an amazing, careful, perceptive writer who crafts in-depth stories about people who feel so real I could imagine them walking past my house. She is never never sentimental, but she isn't falsely tough either. Her writing is precise, not the least bit showy, and always perfect. Her stories are really character studies, close looks at the way people who have been through difficult times will behave, how hard times change them, how they grow or don't grow. I'm looking forward to reading many more of her stories.
March 28, 2012
Mavis Gallant is an extraordinary writer whose work is alarmingly underestimated. Her point of view is particular, her prose flawless, and her forthcomingness in interviews annoyingly stingy. But she will be recorded in history as a writer in English in the twentieth century of extraordinary gifts. Read her.
Read
July 26, 2009one of the best short story writers
March 28, 2017
A university lecturer named Francine Prose praised Mavis Gallant's short stories effusively, yet precisely, in this article in the New Yorker.
This article, among other reviews, and curiosity, and living in Paris for a time, a Canadian in Paris, made me want to get to know Mavis Gallant's work.
I confess though, that her Selected Stories, which spans � decades, overwhelmed me.
I was impressed to be introduced to so many social contexts that I was unfamiliar with. One was sort of an urban counterpart to Alice Munro's farm stories, and yet even more specific, Anglophones living in French Canada in the 30s and 40s, and then various kinds of Europeans, often travelling to another part of Europe or immigrating there, living in different cultural enclaves or in different social strata. Bureaucratics, intellectuals, critics and writers, poor hoarders and those who'd inherited wealth, women in unhappy marriages, or waiting to get married. It is quite a dizzying cast of characters, and often introduced with very specific cultural details.
Woven often with satirical social observation and a sharp tongue, I was drawn into some of the stories, particularly interested in the lives of women aiming to be independent, or find love, or a partnership. She was no prude either; characters are remarkably frank in their affairs.
And yet, at other times, I found it hard to engage with some of these unlikeable characters: a literary critic described at great length, mostly in relation to a rival, for example, was a character study but with little story.
But I do think that I chose the wrong format to meet Ms Gallant. Too many stories made me rush through them, which is against Ms Prose's advice, and downloading it to read on my iPad also gave the stories less weight, made them more ephemeral than they are, and less likely for me to stay with them, return to them.
Certainly an interesting writer though and I'm glad for those who are fond of her gifts. The thesis that she wasn't recognised because no country could claim her properly as her own seemed correct � and she does seem to be the patron saint of global citizens who have lived in different cities and cultures, observing life keenly as an outsider.
This article, among other reviews, and curiosity, and living in Paris for a time, a Canadian in Paris, made me want to get to know Mavis Gallant's work.
I confess though, that her Selected Stories, which spans � decades, overwhelmed me.
I was impressed to be introduced to so many social contexts that I was unfamiliar with. One was sort of an urban counterpart to Alice Munro's farm stories, and yet even more specific, Anglophones living in French Canada in the 30s and 40s, and then various kinds of Europeans, often travelling to another part of Europe or immigrating there, living in different cultural enclaves or in different social strata. Bureaucratics, intellectuals, critics and writers, poor hoarders and those who'd inherited wealth, women in unhappy marriages, or waiting to get married. It is quite a dizzying cast of characters, and often introduced with very specific cultural details.
Woven often with satirical social observation and a sharp tongue, I was drawn into some of the stories, particularly interested in the lives of women aiming to be independent, or find love, or a partnership. She was no prude either; characters are remarkably frank in their affairs.
And yet, at other times, I found it hard to engage with some of these unlikeable characters: a literary critic described at great length, mostly in relation to a rival, for example, was a character study but with little story.
But I do think that I chose the wrong format to meet Ms Gallant. Too many stories made me rush through them, which is against Ms Prose's advice, and downloading it to read on my iPad also gave the stories less weight, made them more ephemeral than they are, and less likely for me to stay with them, return to them.
Certainly an interesting writer though and I'm glad for those who are fond of her gifts. The thesis that she wasn't recognised because no country could claim her properly as her own seemed correct � and she does seem to be the patron saint of global citizens who have lived in different cities and cultures, observing life keenly as an outsider.
May 6, 2024
Mavis is my comfort reading, something to go to after Gary Lutz or Sharon Olds have blown my head off. She was such a great storyteller. I find myself reading one or two of her stories every now and then (esp the Paris ones!) almost to relax. That said, since this book is about 3,000 pages long, I can'r imagine I'll ever finish it.
February 16, 2008
Gallant is a master of the short story, but often overlooked.
April 20, 2015
This is an excellent collection of stories that introduces the reader to the work of one of Canada's greatest short story writers.
Read
May 30, 2023There is an introduction to this collection written by Gallant where she states: “There is something I keep wanting to say about reading short stories. I am doing it now, because I may never have another occasion. Stories are not chapters of novels. They should not be read one after another, as if they were meant to follow along. Read one. Shut the book. Read something else. Come back later. Stories can wait.�
I both agree and disagree with Gallant on this point, but I take it nonetheless. I tend to blur stories together and read them one after another, especially in big collections, where I take one or two of the long stories (over 30 pages) then a bunch of the shorter stories (under ten), and work my way through the medium stories (in between). Sometimes this works for me and often it doesn’t. Because I am so fixated on reading through the stories and because so much of my reading was developed in college where we’d have more reading assigned than we could possibly cover in class time, I got used to things. Last year was a prime example of letting that philosophy take hold. This year I am trying to do something a little different. I am going to be reading more demanding, longer books in general. The goal will be to slow down and keep a steady but no longer hearty pace. The idea will be to read more carefully and thoughtfully and try to strike a balance. To not treat the long stories (or books) like obstacles to get past, and to not treat short stories (or books) like boxes to check off. I will still allow myself to plow through books I am not super enjoying or that seem like I should read them but for ones I actually like, I need to pace myself. I know that the obvious solution is to no waste my time with books I don’t like. I know that’s more or less sound advice but I do get something out of reading things I don’t like or I feel are somewhat offensive because it still gives me things to think about and consider. I will not force myself to read books I am bored by.
And I still won’t allow myself to feel smug about having put a book down. I read a review of a different Gallant collection and the reviewer was so proud of himself for “having her number� as it were and so smug about it. He was super defensive when people even asked him questions or suggested anything additional to consider. His attitude was deeply unpleasant, and more so, he was wrong.
Mavis Gallant is great.
Her stories here are just so genuinely good as a rule that while not every single story reached me in that way you might look for, there wasn’t a dud among the whole collection. And this collection is 900 pages and contains 50+ stories. Also, there’s not a single gimmick among them. At all!
There’s one story (out of a 50 year career) written in the second person, a thing I often hate, but here it was done so beautifully. It’s called “Mlle. Dias de Corta� and it’s among one of the last stories Gallant published. In the story, our narrator, who is writing in a kind of both first person and second person voice (narrated back forth with “I”s and “You”s) telling both her story and “our� story in the body of Mlle. Dias de Corta, an actress of sorts who stayed with the family of the narrator in her youth and had a short and dramatic romance with the narrator’s son. The narrator is telling the story of a changing Europe through her understanding of the actress’s career, as well as understanding the loss she feels at no longer knowing the young woman, now much older. It’s a siren song kind of story, and it’s really very good.
That’s just one. Each story more or less embodies a richness that uses Gallant’s station as an outsider in Paris to be able to carefully understand post-war Europe, as well as Canadian and American life as an ex-pat. Just when you think that Gallant sees all Americans and Canadians as rednecks in the culture and grace of Europe (she lived in Paris for some 50 years and many if not most of the stories take place within or from without Paris), she turns the tables to allow a shifty gallery curator to be owned by a Canadian expat in a pseudo-religious cult.
Along a certain set of lines, she has a story for every occasion. These are very much not American (or North American) stories, save a few, but somehow she has contained within them every version of myself from my teens on as well as every person I have ever dated. It’s a weird and uncanny read to be sure.
Here’s a sampling:
From “New Year’s Eve�
“On New Year’s Eve the Plummers took Amabel to the opera.
“What happens tonight happens every day for a year,� said Amabel, feeling secure because she has a Plummer on either side.
Colonel Plummer’s car had broken down that afternoon; he had got his wife and their guest punctually to the Bolshoi Theater, through a storm, in a bootleg taxi. Now he discovered from his program that the opera announced was neither of those they had been promised.
His wife leaned across Amabel and said, “Well, which is it?� She could not read any Russian and would not try.
She must have known it would take him minutes to answer, for she sat back, settled a width of gauzy old shawl on her neck, and began telling Amabel the relative sizes of the Bolshoi and some convert hall in Vancouver the girl had never heard of. Then, because it was the Colonel’s turn to speak, she shut her eyes and waited for the overture.
The Colonel was gazing at the program and putting off the moment when he would say that it was Ivan Susanin, a third choice no one had so much hinted at. He wanted to convey that he was sorry and that the change was not his fault. He took bearings: He was surrounded bu women. To his left sat the guest, who mewed like a kitten, who had been a friend of his daughter’s, and whose name he could not remember. On the right, near the aisle, two quiet unknown girls were eating fruit and chocolates. These two smelled of oranges; of clothes worn a long time in winter; of light recent sweat; of women’s hair. Their arms were large and bare. When the girl closest to him moved slightly, he saw a man’s foreign wristwatch. He wondered who she was, and how the watch had come to her, but he had been here two years now–long enough to know he would never be answered. He also wondered if the girls were as shabby as his guest found everyone in Moscow. His way of seeing women was not concerned with that sort of evidence: Shoes were shoes, a frock was a frock.
The girls took no notice of the Colonel. He was invisible to them, wiped out of being by a curtain pulled over the inner eye.�
This is a pretty typical kind of passage. Oddly funny, incisive, interior, and full of little moments of understanding with the character’s perspective and the audience, but not always with those others around them.
I both agree and disagree with Gallant on this point, but I take it nonetheless. I tend to blur stories together and read them one after another, especially in big collections, where I take one or two of the long stories (over 30 pages) then a bunch of the shorter stories (under ten), and work my way through the medium stories (in between). Sometimes this works for me and often it doesn’t. Because I am so fixated on reading through the stories and because so much of my reading was developed in college where we’d have more reading assigned than we could possibly cover in class time, I got used to things. Last year was a prime example of letting that philosophy take hold. This year I am trying to do something a little different. I am going to be reading more demanding, longer books in general. The goal will be to slow down and keep a steady but no longer hearty pace. The idea will be to read more carefully and thoughtfully and try to strike a balance. To not treat the long stories (or books) like obstacles to get past, and to not treat short stories (or books) like boxes to check off. I will still allow myself to plow through books I am not super enjoying or that seem like I should read them but for ones I actually like, I need to pace myself. I know that the obvious solution is to no waste my time with books I don’t like. I know that’s more or less sound advice but I do get something out of reading things I don’t like or I feel are somewhat offensive because it still gives me things to think about and consider. I will not force myself to read books I am bored by.
And I still won’t allow myself to feel smug about having put a book down. I read a review of a different Gallant collection and the reviewer was so proud of himself for “having her number� as it were and so smug about it. He was super defensive when people even asked him questions or suggested anything additional to consider. His attitude was deeply unpleasant, and more so, he was wrong.
Mavis Gallant is great.
Her stories here are just so genuinely good as a rule that while not every single story reached me in that way you might look for, there wasn’t a dud among the whole collection. And this collection is 900 pages and contains 50+ stories. Also, there’s not a single gimmick among them. At all!
There’s one story (out of a 50 year career) written in the second person, a thing I often hate, but here it was done so beautifully. It’s called “Mlle. Dias de Corta� and it’s among one of the last stories Gallant published. In the story, our narrator, who is writing in a kind of both first person and second person voice (narrated back forth with “I”s and “You”s) telling both her story and “our� story in the body of Mlle. Dias de Corta, an actress of sorts who stayed with the family of the narrator in her youth and had a short and dramatic romance with the narrator’s son. The narrator is telling the story of a changing Europe through her understanding of the actress’s career, as well as understanding the loss she feels at no longer knowing the young woman, now much older. It’s a siren song kind of story, and it’s really very good.
That’s just one. Each story more or less embodies a richness that uses Gallant’s station as an outsider in Paris to be able to carefully understand post-war Europe, as well as Canadian and American life as an ex-pat. Just when you think that Gallant sees all Americans and Canadians as rednecks in the culture and grace of Europe (she lived in Paris for some 50 years and many if not most of the stories take place within or from without Paris), she turns the tables to allow a shifty gallery curator to be owned by a Canadian expat in a pseudo-religious cult.
Along a certain set of lines, she has a story for every occasion. These are very much not American (or North American) stories, save a few, but somehow she has contained within them every version of myself from my teens on as well as every person I have ever dated. It’s a weird and uncanny read to be sure.
Here’s a sampling:
From “New Year’s Eve�
“On New Year’s Eve the Plummers took Amabel to the opera.
“What happens tonight happens every day for a year,� said Amabel, feeling secure because she has a Plummer on either side.
Colonel Plummer’s car had broken down that afternoon; he had got his wife and their guest punctually to the Bolshoi Theater, through a storm, in a bootleg taxi. Now he discovered from his program that the opera announced was neither of those they had been promised.
His wife leaned across Amabel and said, “Well, which is it?� She could not read any Russian and would not try.
She must have known it would take him minutes to answer, for she sat back, settled a width of gauzy old shawl on her neck, and began telling Amabel the relative sizes of the Bolshoi and some convert hall in Vancouver the girl had never heard of. Then, because it was the Colonel’s turn to speak, she shut her eyes and waited for the overture.
The Colonel was gazing at the program and putting off the moment when he would say that it was Ivan Susanin, a third choice no one had so much hinted at. He wanted to convey that he was sorry and that the change was not his fault. He took bearings: He was surrounded bu women. To his left sat the guest, who mewed like a kitten, who had been a friend of his daughter’s, and whose name he could not remember. On the right, near the aisle, two quiet unknown girls were eating fruit and chocolates. These two smelled of oranges; of clothes worn a long time in winter; of light recent sweat; of women’s hair. Their arms were large and bare. When the girl closest to him moved slightly, he saw a man’s foreign wristwatch. He wondered who she was, and how the watch had come to her, but he had been here two years now–long enough to know he would never be answered. He also wondered if the girls were as shabby as his guest found everyone in Moscow. His way of seeing women was not concerned with that sort of evidence: Shoes were shoes, a frock was a frock.
The girls took no notice of the Colonel. He was invisible to them, wiped out of being by a curtain pulled over the inner eye.�
This is a pretty typical kind of passage. Oddly funny, incisive, interior, and full of little moments of understanding with the character’s perspective and the audience, but not always with those others around them.
July 27, 2020
It's exciting read the familiar names of streets and parks brought to life with such timeless prose. The unique interactions known only to Montreal of fluent conversations flipping between french and English, the underlying canvas of religion and class, and the new and world all woven together are near to any Montréalais.
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March 22, 2025Definitely did not read all thousand pages of this, but enjoyed what I did get to! She had a real gift for a certain type of unlikeable character as seen through the eyes of an outside observer.
July 9, 2023
Expertly written stories by a master of the form.
September 5, 2019
FINE FORGOTTEN WRITERS... A toast to Mavis Gallant (1922-2014)! 🙌(I promise, not all of my FFWs are dead!). Let Gallant speak for herself: “Like every other form of art, literature is no more and nothing less than a matter of life and death.� It always strikes me as magical that writers can speak to us from beyond the grave. 🎈
August 12, 2016
I've found when I carry around a large 800+ page book like this, I'm bound to get looks. "Is he really reading THAT?" I suppose it is no different than the look I give to people carrying around "Infinite Jest" or "War and Peace." I guess it is an impressive undertaking...but is it worth it?
In the case of The Collected Stories of Mavis Gallant, no. No, it isn't worth it.
Ms. Gallant was a fine writer and used language well, but she wasn't a very engaging story teller. Only a handful of stories here interested me - "Baum, Gabriel, 1935 - ( )" and "Scarves, Beads and Sandals" to name two. The strongest stories are those collected under the "The Carette Sisters" and "Edouard, Juliette, Lena" headings which weave several separate short stories into what is almost a novella.
Overall though, there isn't much here to recommend. In the Preface, Gallant suggested that these stories are not to be read all at once, and recommended that the reader enjoy one, then put the book down and come back to it later. Maybe I should have listened.
In the case of The Collected Stories of Mavis Gallant, no. No, it isn't worth it.
Ms. Gallant was a fine writer and used language well, but she wasn't a very engaging story teller. Only a handful of stories here interested me - "Baum, Gabriel, 1935 - ( )" and "Scarves, Beads and Sandals" to name two. The strongest stories are those collected under the "The Carette Sisters" and "Edouard, Juliette, Lena" headings which weave several separate short stories into what is almost a novella.
Overall though, there isn't much here to recommend. In the Preface, Gallant suggested that these stories are not to be read all at once, and recommended that the reader enjoy one, then put the book down and come back to it later. Maybe I should have listened.
November 19, 2018
It took several years to finish this book as I would read a story after finishing another book. I think the slow reading made it even more pleasurable. Mavis Gallant is my favourite short story author having read her for decades in the New Yorker. I can see why some would not care for her stories; many of the characters seems strangely disassociated and dissatisfied with life. I really wish I could put a finger on why her writing seems to strike me to the core. I can say her writing is wonderfully crafted. Often, I would pause and reread a sentence, marveling at its construction and meaning. I read the book in order. The best stories to me were the ones toward the end of the book.
December 12, 2017
This lengthy book of well-written and perceptive short stories lean towards the Canadian, French and feminine (though some have a male voice rather well done) and are somewhat dated unless you are looking for a taste of some of the culture of past decades. They eventually began to test my (U.S. male) attention until the last quarter, which reads as more overtly autobiographical, is much more interesting, and brings this collection close to five stars, which is how Canadian or French women are likely to rate it.
March 2, 2016
Collection of short stories written over a large part of the 20th century. At first, the stories mainly talk about foreigners living in post-war Europe and their interaction with the locals. Later on, the themes adjust to the modern times. Mavis Gallant is able to sketch emotionally complicated situations in few pages, and more tan often, the end offers a surprising turn to the story. It makes for some enjoyable reading although most of the stories can´t exactly be said to be warm stories with warm characters.
January 22, 2019
The stories aren't arranged chronologically, but looking at their publication dates, I find retroactively that almost all of the stories I found luminous, arresting, or just downright splendid were published after 1985 or so. And among the early ones there were several so displeasing to me that I almost gave up on slogging through. So I would recommend that one definitely seek out the Linnet Muir cycle, and any of her later collections, but not so much this giant tome of All the Stories Ever.
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November 3, 2014Upon learning of her death earlier this week on Feb 18, 2014, I re-read the Linnet Muir stories in this overflowing treasure chest of a volume. I fell in love all over again with Gallant's wonderful ability to evoke a mood and create a character. Interesting to compare 'Varieties of Exile' and its portrait of a 'remittance man' with any number of stories by Somerset Maugham. RIP, madame. Thank you for all that you have left us.
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May 28, 2016I must've read this in the spam of more than 2 years. It's really to heavy to read several stories in one go. Which made the last stories in the book rather annoying. It's those continuing stories featuring the same people. though one of the arc is really interesting they made it more difficult to break the reading. Plus, i've read some of them in the other collection.
The best story would be the first which I've chewed so many times and still tasty.
4 stars.
The best story would be the first which I've chewed so many times and still tasty.
4 stars.
November 2, 2017
At 887 pages this is a daunting project to read and builds your arms up at the same time. Mavis Gallant was a talented writer who clearly improved as her career progressed. Her stories are based in France or French Canada and take place from the 30's to the 90's. So, this collection offers great insights into different times and cultures. Although there is a variety of characters and situations, I had some trouble following the stories and remaining interested.
September 14, 2014
This hardcover book is HUGE and daunting at first, but once you start reading it is nearly impossible to put down. Her short stories are so full and rich and the characters so well drawn that you are sorry when their story ends -- except then you get to start a new one and meet a whole new set of characters.
May 16, 2009
I read about half of this tome. And stopped only because I had to return to the library. She's surely one of the masters of the short story form. Although there is a cold, shrewdness in her voice that's hard to shake.
March 2, 2014
I'm still reading this book. I loved Mavis' preface to the book - she recommended reading one story at a time, putting the book down, and then coming back to another. So, that's what I'm doing - one story at a time.
May 14, 2014
She paints such a detailed picture you lose yourself in the moment...tasting every detail, living in that moment along with the characters in the story. What a gifted author: Canada is blessed to have her. We are nourished indeed by her graceful prose so precise it vibrates.
November 13, 2018
Close to 900 pages, 52 stories and not a dud among them. They may puzzle or mystify at times, but they're always intriguing at the least, and terribly well written as a matter of course, as though it doesn't take any effort.
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