Airstream

Description

These fourteen stories by acclaimed poet Patricia Young explore the small victories and lurching disappointments, losses and betrayals of the everyday with a language and style that is tautly poetic and beautifully unsentimental. A woman who cannot leave her house loses almost everything, her only companion a garrulous radio talk show host; a house fire sets in motion the end of a marriage as a couple re-examine the meaning of truth and commitment; a teenage girl cannot extract herself from a doomed relationship with a heroin addict. Innocence, and the loss of it, are handled with humour and compassion, and heartbreaking honesty. Young reveals an uncanny ability to see the mysterious in the commonplace.

Young “brings a poet’s sensibility to the task, richly developing the inner worlds of her characters and often taking a non-linear approach to her storytelling.” —Danforth Review

Young “gives us love and folly and pain and the unending mystery of women and men, boys and girls, with a nuance and balance suggesting Alice Munro, and with echoes of the same wisdom.”—Globe and Mail