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Enlarge Cover
list price: $18.95
edition:Paperback
category: Fiction
published: Oct 2001
ISBN:9781551521091
publisher:
Arsenal Pulp Press
Description
From Judy MacDonald--author of the novel Jane--is a startling collection of stories called Grey.
Grey is a baby. Grey is a bad date. Grey battles a tornado, flies past giant monkeys, and pauses to watch an old woman with her lists.
These stories toy with fact and fiction, autobiography and invention, memory and make believe. Grey proves that a misunderstood colour can be far from dull. Read about a girl falling in love with a giraffe. Learn about one young boy's favourite breastfeeding scenarios. Observe several kinds of relationships. Join the author for an afterlife visit with Stanley Kubrick.
Grey--with delicious observation, sharp dialogue, colourful characters--ages well.
Shortlisted, The Relit Award for Short Fiction.
Awards
- Short-listed, ReLit Award
Editorial Reviews
Kafka said books should "shake us awake like a blow to the skull"; that they should act as "the axe to the frozen sea within us." This is a dead-on description of my first experience of reading Judy MacDonald. This is why MacDonald's bracing, fearless fiction represents some of the most exciting work this country has yet produced.
-Lynn Coady, author of Strange Heaven and Play the Monster Blind
— Lynn Coady
. . . Judy MacDonald writes stories like other people dare their friends to jump off cliffs. . . MacDonald particularly excels when channeling her younger protagonists, the twisted coloring-book logic of her vision aligning nicely with the cracked childhoods she portrays so fearlessly. The result is a collection of stories that deserve attention for their unusual pairing of provocative risk-taking with a commitment to making the risk pay off in emotionally resonant, thoughtful ways.
-NewCityChicago
— NewCityChicago
I started it and finished it on the same day, which is my highest form of praise.
-The Vancouver Sun
— Vancouver Sun
Reading Judy MacDonald's fiction is like watching a hummingbird attack a hollyhock: the narration swoops, dives and flits from observation to observation, hovers and hesitates and then finally lands right on target with a devastating stillness and accuracy.
-eye Magazine
— eye Magazine
Sparse and powerful.
-NOW
— NOW
. . . there's a deep sensitivity under the whimsy. . . she's really writing about universal experiences.
-Uptown
— Uptown
Each story in MacDonald's collection leaves a unique and eerie residue on their reader--a strong impression from beyond the confines of the presented language. Her spare prose, characterized by short, quick sentences, enhances narrative effect, filling the conceived boundary with an evocative, tonal feeling.
-Cosmik Debris
— Cosmik Debris
MacDonald writes with delicacy, humour and sympathy.
-The Globe & Mail
— The Globe & Mail
