A Quarterly of Criticism and Review i^^^^^^^^fcEjfc $15

L a s tP a g e sa lot of readers, I could never connect withAlias Grace—nor, for that matter, withanother book that attracted some people'sattention, Ann-Marie MacDonald's pioneersaga Fall On Your Knees (Knopf). To be fair,Atwood takes substantial risks with this newbook, and significantly extends the range ofher prose style, creating this time a fullermale character than her works have previouslymanaged, as well as a female with animaginably documentable history, a womanvictimized by desire as much as by socialregulation. The woman is "Grace Marks,"the celebrated murderess (or was she?)whom Susanna Moodie once attempted tofree from incarceration. Extensivelyresearched, the novel recounts—throughGrace's relentlessly sequential talks with herdoctor—the life that led (perhaps) to murder;and then the narrative turns its attentionto its subplot and closes in a kind ofparody. Those who admire the book areintrigued by the mystery; I found far moreinteresting the novel's enquiries into thenineteenth-century "sciences" of the mind:phrenology, mesmerism, spiritualism, andthe like. Indeed, Atwood's interest in science—ecology,archeology, string theory—remains yet to be adequately examined.The Englishman's Boy, however, I think isnothing short of brilliant. Juxtaposing twostories—one tells of the title character, andof the events in which he became involved,events in the US that crossed the MedicineLine and led up to the Cypress HillsMassacre in southern Saskatchewan in the1800s. The other records the quest of a youngCanadian scriptwriter in 1920s Hollywood,who (like the Englishman's boy, in somerespects) comes under the influence of thelocal moguls; handed an assignment, hesets out to find an old reclusive cowboy, inorder to get him to tell his real-life story,for money; a writer, he then takes over theold man's life—but also finds himselfresisting taking it over, or rewriting, withmoral and monetary consequences forthem both. Is the old man (with a Scotsname) the "Englishman's boy"? I don'tthink so; but I think he's been along on thetrip, himself noting down the lives of others,until the nature of "real life" becomesindistinguishable from narrative. Who thenis the listener? And to what ends? This is anarrative of narratives, rich stylistically,rich in implication; read it and marvel.The Selected Stories of Alice Munro andMavis Gallant (both M&S) separately rangeacross each writer's extraordinary work;each book offers opportunities to savourhow perception, in the hands of an accomplishedstylist, turns into understanding.Short story collections by newer writers donot yet have either the history or the rangeof these, but among such writers, the worksof several stand out: Michael Kenyon'sDurable Tumblers (Oolichan), with itsseemingly intuitive recognition of hurt andisolation; Eden Robinson's Traplines(HarperCollins), a series of devastatingglimpses into the lives of teenagers who aretorn into violence by their surroundings,their families, their friends, and theirdivided loyalties; Keath Fraser's Telling MyLove Lies (Porcupine's Quill), a unified collectionwittily designed as the creative (andcompetitive) accomplishments of themembers of a book club; Andrew Pyper'sKiss Me (Porcupine's Quill), with its portraitsof under-3os youths and their discussionsof sexuality, inadequacy, violence, and theimpermanence, the disarrangements, of love.There were also able, if less universallycompelling, narratives by Marilyn GearPilling, Isabel Huggan, Meeka Walsh, andothers, and the collections of stories by JamesReaney and L.M. Montgomery, reprintsand rearrangements, are tributes to thecontinuing interest in these writers' works.Once again: that endeavour to map thepast, or to redesign its relation with thepresent. So many fictions took up thisstrategy, so often without quite making itwork. Daphne Marlatt's Taken (Anansi)190