THE PATH OF TOTALITY
Audrey Thomas
Penguin Books, 316 pp.
Dysfunctional families, faraway countries, unfulfillment and childhood permeate Audrey Thomas’s collection of short stories, The Path of Totality. It is an assemblage of emotions, thoughts and inner reflection, each story with its own edge and character.
The Path of Totality is comprised of 22 short works, some previously published and dating back to 1965, and some more recent. What binds these stories together is the intense emotion with which they are told. "Volunteers" deals honestly with the feelings of a woman who ponders what might have been had she chosen to keep and raise her mentally challenged child. "Bear Country" looks into the life of a feminist performance artist and her personal confrontation with the Montreal massacre at L’École Polytechnique through her art. In "Crossing The Rubicon," a woman reflects on a past relationship with a married man, which evolves into a very personal relationship with both him and his wife.
Although a sense of being alone and longing prevails in many of the stories, this collection finishes with an air of hope and optimism in "Breaking the Ice." A divorced mother of three deals with spending part of the Christmas holidays alone, desperately needing her children to accept her new relationship, slowly allowing herself to be happy.
It is not hard to see why Thomas has won this year’s W.O. Mitchell Literary Prize – she shows an incredible gift for constructing stories, giving them depth and personality. The Path of Totality is a trip through foreign countries, familial relationships and self-discovery which is to be savoured.
Audrey Thomas reads as part of PanCanadian WordFest at the Friday Showcase on October 12 at 7 p.m. at the Uptown Screen. |
