4.0 out of 5 stars
Not ABC, but EFG: Englightened, Funny and Gritty, May 12 2000
This review is from: Sex is red (Paperback)
Three of these excellent stories by Bill Gaston stand out in my mind: the tale of a soused would-be Lothario on vacation in Prince Edward Island with his ailing wife and 4 grubby kids, a story about taking the possibilities of sexual intimacy in marriage to a new level and a story (written almost in the form of letter or newspaper report) about a man obsessed with saving the world by destroying TVs (literally).
I appreciate this author's wry view of life in smalltown Canada (Fredericton, New Brunswick was the locale for many of the stories). It's good to see a man writing about the daily struggle withfamily & intimacy, in all its forms; one character's nerves are jangled by the sounds of his family chewing their food (hey, I can relate to that!).
Gaston is a fine writer whose work pulses with humour and emotional honesty. His men may be loners, husbands or fathers. (Some of them are all 3--living the existential truth that we are ALL alone.) They are also fallible andthus loveable. The fact that they seem to like to play hockey is truly unfortunate (as I said, they're fallible!)
Many of the stories resonate with the foibles of small-town Canada: the guy with long hair who works in a record store, lives alone in a dirty bungalow and has never given up smoking pot--YES, that's what happens when you never leave home!
Gaston was born in 1953--so was I!--and his sensibilities speak to Baby Boomers like me who grew up in small towns, tuned in and turned on, then dropped out for awhile before going to university, getting a job, and now--as Daniel Lanois wrote (and Emmylou Harris sang) in one of his haunting tunes:-- we're "raising kids, from raising hell". This is where Gaston's characters find themselves: in middle age, having been part of the 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s. Along the way, they've played with sex, drugs, rock & roll and Buddhism! It all figures into the lives Gaston paints in the pages of this excellent collection of short stories. He is one of Canada's gems!
I also highly recommend 2 of Gaston's novels, Tall Lives and Inviting Blindness.
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