Amanda Craig
Middle-Class Anxieties
CAROL SHIELDS PUBLISHED four novels in utter obscurity in the first five decades of her life, before finding a international readership in 1987 with Swann (published as Mary Swann in the UK), and going on to win a Pulitzer Prize for The Stone Diaries and the Orange Prize for Larry's Party. Her last novel, Unless, was shortlisted for the Booker (as The Stone Diaries had also been), just before she died of breast cancer in 2003. Shields's passing has caused a kind of hagiography to grow up around her output, the most recent manifestation of which is the publication of these Collected Stories. The collection consists of three previously published volumes of short stories - Various Miracles (1985), The Orange Fish (1989, but not previously published in the UK) and Dressing Up for the Carnival (2000) - plus her last work, Segue.
As one of Shields's earliest admirers, I feel slightly uncomfortable asking if this is not inflating a reputation too far. Shields was exceptionally good at playing with the form of the novel, and around this interest, which was as much poetic as modernist, she fashioned tales of domestic ups and
Sign Up to our newsletter
Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.@Lit_Review
Follow Literary Review on Twitter
'There is a difference between a doctor who writes medical treatises and a doctor who writes absurdist fiction. Do we want our heart surgeon to be an anti-realist?'
Joanna Kavenna peruses Iain Bamforth's 'Scattered Limbs: A Medical Dreambook'.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/trust-me-philosopher
How did Uwe Johnson, the German writer who was friends with Hannah Arendt and Max Frisch, end up living out his days in the town of Sheerness, Kent?
https://literaryreview.co.uk/estuary-german
You only have a week left to take advantage of our February offer: a six-month subscription for only £19.99.
https://www.mymagazinesub.co.uk/literary-review/promo/literaryfebruary/