Short stories
My Heart Is Broken
Mavis Gallant · 1964
Synopsis
Eight short stories and a short novel. In the story that gives the volume its title, a young bride, who has come to join her husband at a road-building site in northern Quebec, tells the paymaster's wife what has just happened to her, and is met with reproaches. The short novel, held from start to finish by the voice of Jean Price, follows the narrator's fascination with her sister Isobel, who defies their Montreal family. The other stories lead to a boarding house on the Riviera, to Paris and to a house in Montreal.
Context
Its author's second collection, published in New York by Random House in 1964, and the following year in London under a different title, taken from one of the stories. The short novel, fourth of the nine texts, is carried by a single voice, that of one sister watching the other. The whole appeared in French from Fayard in 1990, in a translation by Jean Lambert that takes the title of the London edition.
Who it is for
Texts to be read separately, in an allusive manner; the longest of the texts calls for a sustained reading.
Prizes and reception
Welcomed on its publication by critics who praised the subtlety and mobility of the narrative; it appeared in paperback in French in 1996.
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