THE ELIZABETH STORIES

by Isabel Huggan ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 1, 1987

Huggan's eight linked stories, all about a young woman's coming of age in postwar Canada, teem with insights into the recollected misery and wonder of childhood and adolescence. These nuanced fictions follow the life of Elizabeth Kessler, a somewhat homely and chronically misunderstood daughter of stolidly bourgeois provincials who's oppressed not just by her difficult parents but also by their anemic religion, her fickle friends, small-town life itself, and the relentlessly cold climate. In ""Celia Behind Me;"" Elizabeth discovers a frightening and enduring darkness within herself when she beats up a frail, diabetic girl named Celia. This same ""capacity for sins"" reveals itself in ""Sawdust,"" which chronicles her early sexuality, from pre-pubescent group masturbation and groping to ""the first shreddings of female dread""--an awkward episode with the butcher's son. ""The shocks and cheats"" of her early life, often the result of adult whim, give way to the disgrace, humiliation, shame, and heartbreak of her teen years; there is the trauma of being chosen to play the boy in her dance-school recital (""Jack of Hearts""); the injustice of being falsely accused of abusing her retarded cousin (""into The Green Stillness""); and the guilt of her adolescent homosexuality at religious summer camp (""Queen Esther""). Huggan's hard-won sense of irony comes through most powerfully in ""Sorrows of the Flesh,"" where the high-school teacher who changes Elizabeth's life is arrested for wife-beating. Equally well-earned is the notion articulated in ""Getting Out of Garten"" that ""wounded though we may be, we are still intact."" Shockingly honest and confessional in tone, these humorously self-dramatizing tales never whine. With her sure conviction that events have meaning and consequence, and with her ability to demonstrate this in unusually textured prose, Huggan proves a formidable new presence in contemporary fiction.

Pub Date: May 1, 1987

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Viking

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 1987

Categories: FICTION