Synopsis
Short fiction from a Canadian writer who won an O. Henry Award in 2001 for the title story.
| Details | | Publication Date: | 2003-04-01 |
| Size | | Length: | 240 pages | | Height: | 9.5 in | | Width: | 6.5 in | | Thickness: | 0.8 in | | Weight: | 16.0 oz |
Publisher's Note
“A writer who arrives with grace and authority,” says Alice Munro about the superb short stories of Mary Swan, winner of the First Prize in the 2001 O. Henry Awards.
In The Deep and Other Stories, Mary Swan gives us brilliant stories that illuminate the remarkable moments in life, covering a wide range of human thoughts and emotions in a unique, imaginative, and profoundly moving way. “The Deep,” her O. Henry Prize–winning story and the centerpiece of this book, tells of twin sisters, their lives amid the horror and confusion of World War I, and the deep connection between them.
The mysterious bonds that entwine people are at the heart of other stories as well. Whether vacationing at the Belgian seaside (“By the Sea, By the Sea”) or sharing an apartment in Spain (“Spanish Grammar”), Swan’s characters discover the emotional foundations that are part of being human. Imaginative, poetic, and true, The Deep and Other Stories reveals something unexpected—and magnificent—about what it means to be alive, to feel love and passion, to know and experience the world’s pains and pleasures in a way that is rooted in, and ultimately the essence of, the human condition. As Mary Gordon says, “‘The Deep’ marks the deep strangeness of the project of being alive....It flowers entirely on its own terms, and the terms are rich and strange.”
Industry Reviews
"[A] wonderful collection of 13 stories and a novella....Swan achieves the best possible of historical tones, neither nostalgic nor sentimental, but simply matter of fact, making her tales of the past ultimately timeless."
Kirkus Reviews (03/01/2003)
"[Swan] explores a number of different forms with varying results, succeeding most brilliantly at those that seem the most difficult. Her triumph is the 68-page title story, which is reminiscent of some of the work Alice Munro has published over the last decade....Swan's technique, not unlike Munro's, is to probe an event in local or national history by examining its effects on characters who might once have been seen as peripheral....Each time a character reappears, doors open between the stories, enlarging the view in a way that's pleasing even when the stories aren't of equal strength."
New York Times Book Review - Andrea Barrett (04/13/2003)
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