Carol Shields's collection of short stories is the definitive anthology of this genre of her work. It contains all previously published stories and one entirely new: "Segue," her last work. She died of cancer in July of 2003, after fighting the good fight, for the second time. The book is introduced by Margaret Atwood, another widely read Canadian author, who was a longtime friend and admirer of Shields.

The stories are truly remarkable, combining great humor with poignant observation--an exploration of the idiosyncracies of our friends, lovers, spouses, and children, and the gift of being a true storyteller. She glories in writing about the mundane: grocery shopping, ballet lessons, mowing the lawn; and in the quirky, as in a young boy's grandfather who becomes a "naturist," a grandmother who was North America's Turkey Queen in Ramona, California, and wore a dress made completely of turkey feathers. Her writing is full of wonder and serendipity: "Roger, aged thirty, employed by the Gas Board, is coming out of a corner grocers carrying a mango in his left hand. He went in to buy an apple and came out with this." Now, what will turn out to be important here: Roger's age, his employment, why the mango instead of the apple, and, is he left-handed? Carol Shields will sort it all out for the reader, in the most enjoyable way possible. While her stories are accessible, they are never trivial. Each one is finely crafted, illuminating something about a person, a relationship, an event.

In "Segue," Max and Jane begin their Sunday morning buying bread and flowers; he, an accomplished novelist, she, a writer of sonnets. They proceed to luncheon at their daughter's house, return home to conversation, reading, roast chicken, and evening reverie. Jane reflects upon her aging body: "My aging is me too, as well as the subject of my current sonnet. Only two years ago the idea of aging belonged to the whole world. It was background. I hadn't been touched by it then. Now I am." Touched by age and encroaching illness, Carol Shields wrote one last marvelous story.

In her foreword, Margaret Atwood, who visited Shields only two months before she died, writes: "We did not speak of her illness. She preferred to be treated as a person who was living, not one who was dying." This attitude of mind is reflected in the fabric of all her work, in its clarity, its appreciation of the absurd, and in her understanding of the human condition. --Valerie Ryan

From Publishers Weekly
Shields, who died in 2003, was best known for her novels (The Stone Diaries; Unless), though she published three collections of stories over as many decades, here elegantly gathered and introduced by fellow Canadian and friend Margaret Atwood. Appearing first is her last unpublished tale, "Segue," about an aging couple in failing health - he a famous novelist, she a writer of sonnets - who grow apart as they take "responsibility for [their] own dying bodies." The story serves as a poignant tribute. Overall, Shields's touch is gorgeously light, her tales capturing brief, evanescent moments in the busy lives of couples, mothers and lonely wives. If a few entries seem too brief or lack development, "Hazel" (from The Orange Fish) demonstrates all the elements of Shields's mastery: an ordinary widow, perhaps too polite for her own good, finds a satisfying job as an itinerant kitchen demonstrator and discovers that her timidity and self-effacement can actually be turned to her advantage. From the same collection, the story "Collision" draws on Shields's extended travels and is set in a "small ellipsoid state in eastern Europe," where two lonely people of exotically different background and language collide on a rainy night; the story pursues a separate "biography" of each of the lovers with "every narrative scrap... equally honored." In "Edith-Esther," a story from Shields's last collection, the author prophetically portrays the eponymous protagonist, an 80-year-old novelist, as a "rare bird," pestered by her biographer for "some spiritual breeze" he can put into his book about her. She resists, but the biographer reworks her life the way he wants and in the end, to her dismay, refashions her work as uplifting - the last thing she intended it to be. Uplifting or not, this is a volume full of grace and wisdom. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Bookmarks Magazine
Shields, a critically acclaimed Canadian writer who died in 2003, was best known for fictionalizing the lives of women. In this collection she shows her wider range. Most critics recommend these stories for any Shields fan and as a starting point for new readers. Only The New York Times Book Review described her work as “sometimes mannered linguistic musings” that “conjure up a very writerly writer honing her technical and theoretical skills and paying little attention to conventions of plot and character.” Playing with language, exploring intimate relationships, and examining small town life through Shields’s eyes are all contained in this volume.In our profile and interview with Carol Shields in our Nov/Dec 2002 issue, we wrote Where to Start: “The Stone Diaries displays Shields’s virtuosity in creating a life’s history through intimate language and an intriguing format. Unless continues with unprecedented power as Shields’s multi-layered narrative weaves Reta’s story through the reader’s consciousness.”Copyright © 2004 Phillips & Nelson Media, Inc.

From Booklist
This popular and critically regarded Canadian fiction writer died in 2003, and her posthumous gathering of work in the short story form is impressive in volume, thematic and technical range, and sheer literary artistry. Included is her last piece of writing, "Segue," published here for the first time. It is a magnificently controlled yet deeply emotional and sensitive tale of a late-middle-aged woman coping with aging. Shields' calling card as a short story writer is her creativity in presenting unique plot situations through which to explore fissures in people's lives that initially appear to be meaningless; however, under Shields' empathetic eye, they reveal at once the individuality and universality of vulnerabilities, fears, hurts, and happiness. Her approach to the form can be humorous, satiric, or dark; in searching for new ways to tell a story, she occasionally veers toward cleverness, but the majority of her stories are as solid and luminescent as crystals. A beautiful prose style supports an obvious authorial wisdom about human nature. Brad Hooper
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Miami Herald
"Sublime...Original…Superb…These surprising, effervescent stories can only help to ensure the power of [Shields’] legacy."

O magazine
"Marvelous…This big, beautiful collection should win Shields the devoted readership she deserves."

Charlotte Observer
"Genius…[Shields] is one of our strongest voices in literature."

Rocky Mountain News
"Surprising, daring, and varied...Shields’ Collected Stories makes you feel more keenly the premature loss of her tremendous talent."

Cleveland Plain Dealer
"A revelation and a delight."

New York Sun
"Transcendent…Shields’s stories are made of the fresh air and sunshine of comfortable daily life."

Denver Post
"Shields writes about whimsy, happenstance and serendipity, tragedies that really aren’t, and clean, cutting prose about things that really hurt…Amazing."

Seattle Times
"Full of wonder and serendipity…the stories are truly remarkable, combining great good humor with poignant observation."

Washington Post Book World
"A magisterial compilation... Shields has left us with an intricate literary map of human relationships."

Providence Journal
"A master storyteller of complex and surprisingly nuanced life stories."

Book Description

For the first time, all of Carol Shields's remarkable short stories are gathered together in one volume. This definitive anthology contains the previously unpublished story "Segue," her last work.

In these stories Carol Shields combines the dazzling virtuosity and wise maturity that won so many readers to her prize-winning novels. With her exquisite eye for detail and her eagerness to explore the most fundamental of relationships and the wildest of coincidences, she illuminates the absurdities and miracles that grace all of our lives.

Playful, charming, acutely observed, and generous of spirit, this collection of stories will delight and enchant readers the world over.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

For the first time, all of Carol Shields's remarkable short stories are gathered together in one volume. This definitive anthology contains the previously unpublished story "Segue," her last work.

In these stories Carol Shields combines the dazzling virtuosity and wise maturity that won so many readers to her prize-winning novels. With her exquisite eye for detail and her eagerness to explore the most fundamental of relationships and the wildest of coincidences, she illuminates the absurdities and miracles that grace all of our lives.

Playful, charming, acutely observed, and generous of spirit, this collection of stories will delight and enchant readers the world over.

About the Author:

Carol Shields was born and brought up in Chicago but lived in Canada for most of her life. She was the author of eight novels—including Larry's Party and The Stone Diaries—and three collections of short stories: Various Miracles, The Orange Fish, and Dressing Up for the Carnival. Her work won many prestigious awards, among them the Pulitzer Prize and the Orange Prize for Fiction. Her final novel, Unless, was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. She died in 2003.

SYNOPSIS

For the first time, all of Carol Shields's remarkable short stories are gathered together in one volume. This definitive anthology contains the previously unpublished story "Segue," her last work.

In these stories Carol Shields combines the dazzling virtuosity and wise maturity that won so many readers to her prize-winning novels. With her exquisite eye for detail and her eagerness to explore the most fundamental of relationships and the wildest of coincidences, she illuminates the absurdities and miracles that grace all of our lives.

Playful, charming, acutely observed, and generous of spirit, this collection of stories will delight and enchant readers the world over.

FROM THE CRITICS

Ann Hulbert - The New York Times

Taken together, Shields's stories risk seeming like curiously weightless exercises -- lightly parodic postmodern turns. Yet this eclectic bundle of fragments also serves to highlight her novelistic gift and heft. When Shields stitches together such vivid patchworks of lives in her longer fiction, she manages to convey the inadequacy, and also the urgent necessity, of words to give us a grip on our discontinuous selves -- and a glimpse into the ultimately unknowable worlds of others. Shields's novels do tend to end happily. But they are also haunting because she has made us aware that ''the arabesque of the unfolded self'' (a very Shieldsian phrase from ''Absence'') is always a dance over an abyss.

Publishers Weekly

Shields, who died in 2003, was best known for her novels (The Stone Diaries; Unless), though she published three collections of stories over as many decades, here elegantly gathered and introduced by fellow Canadian and friend Margaret Atwood. Appearing first is her last unpublished tale, "Segue," about an aging couple in failing health-he a famous novelist, she a writer of sonnets-who grow apart as they take "responsibility for [their] own dying bodies." The story serves as a poignant tribute. Overall, Shields's touch is gorgeously light, her tales capturing brief, evanescent moments in the busy lives of couples, mothers and lonely wives. If a few entries seem too brief or lack development, "Hazel" (from The Orange Fish) demonstrates all the elements of Shields's mastery: an ordinary widow, perhaps too polite for her own good, finds a satisfying job as an itinerant kitchen demonstrator and discovers that her timidity and self-effacement can actually be turned to her advantage. From the same collection, the story "Collision" draws on Shields's extended travels and is set in a "small ellipsoid state in eastern Europe," where two lonely people of exotically different background and language collide on a rainy night; the story pursues a separate "biography" of each of the lovers with "every narrative scrap... equally honored." In "Edith-Esther," a story from Shields's last collection, the author prophetically portrays the eponymous protagonist, an 80-year-old novelist, as a "rare bird," pestered by her biographer for "some spiritual breeze" he can put into his book about her. She resists, but the biographer reworks her life the way he wants and in the end, to her dismay, refashions her work as uplifting-the last thing she intended it to be. Uplifting or not, this is a volume full of grace and wisdom. (Feb.) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

This author received wide notice during her lifetime, through both healthy sales and critical recognition, the latter including the Pulitzer Prize (for The Stone Diaries). This posthumous publication of her complete short fiction will be welcomed by her many readers and will provide a good introduction for those not familiar with her work. The collection opens with "Segue," the only story not published previously, in which a thoughtful woman maintains balance in the post-9/11 world by composing a sonnet every two weeks, one line per day. Writing's solaces and frustrations appear often: in the amusing "Absence," a sticky keyboard forces a writer to produce a complete piece without the letter i; in "A Scarf," a successful author learns an ironic lesson about being true to one's inner self. Many stories examine the quirks of everyday life, where mystery may lie just behind the ordinary ("Mrs. Turner Cutting the Grass," "Dolls, Dolls, Dolls, Dolls"). Others explore the seemingly minor domestic crises that can discombobulate relationships ("Accident," "Dressing Down," "Hinterland"). All depict distinctive moments in a variety of settings, with moods ranging from nostalgic to farcical. A moving introduction by Margaret Atwood honors Shields's life and writing. Recommended for most collections. [See Prepub Alert, LJ 9/15/04.]-Starr E. Smith, Fairfax Cty. P.L., VA Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews