I am so happy to have finally read this book! I hate to admit this, but I had hoped to review the book last fall around the time of its U.S. release. For some strange reason, instead of putting it in my to-read basket, I put it on my to-read shelf along with all of the other books I got from attending BookExpo. I was arranging those same shelves in February when I ran across this book, along with a few others from the fall that didn’t belong on that shelf! I am horrified at my misfile, as I am a strict OCD type of gal, but hey, as the movie Some Like It Hot taught me, nobody’s perfect. The best part of it all is that I really, really, really liked the book and I’m actually glad to review it here today.
Being a huge pop culture junkie, the first thing that pops into my mind to describe this book is that it is dark and twisty, like Meredith and Cristina on Grey’s Anatomy. I am a dark and twisty girl, which is why I can appreciate dark and twisty stories. If you are a bright and shiny girl, I’m not 100% sure this book is for you. But keep reading, I may be able to convince you to go to the dark side.
Vanishing and Other Stories is a gripping and gloomy collection of 14 short stories, carefully woven together to form a pattern of stories that flow perfectly together, like that Love quilt Winona Rider got as an engagement/wedding gift in How To Make An American Quilt. Unhappy endings and/or beginnings can sometimes make the most beautiful things, and this is evident in all of Willis’ stories, as someone or something is missing. The stories are told by the people left behind, and I dig the variety and depth of her characters. I enjoyed and connected with all of the stories in this book, but Caught, Frank, Vanishing, and Romance Languages really stand out for me. How could you not fall in love with Willis, after reading this quote from Romance Languages:
“Your mother will visit once in these twenty-three years, when you fly her out to meet your Italian and his two sons. She will sit in your cold dining room and tell her kind of stories. About a woman who birthed a baby with half a heart, and children who lit their own heads on fire. Sleepy and honest from wine, she will even tell of the time she met–spoke with, slept with–a man who ate his own dog. And you will look into her face the way you would stare into a funhouse mirror. Your sense of irony tuned enough to know that she will speak of you–your stone house, tanned skin, elegant husband–in the same way she speaks of her dog man. The same sly, gossipy tone you might use, if you knew your own story, if you could tell it now.”
Deborah Willis is a damn fine author, and while reading this book, I felt it would have been the perfect choice for my sophomore English class back at Michigan State. I was almost that same hungry literary reader, sitting outside Morrill Hall with her class in the sunshine, reading other amazing short stories from Ann Beattie, Flannery O’Connor and Jim Harrison. I know people aren’t so hot on short stories these days, but I don’t understand why. My goodness, I’ve stumbled upon some amazing short stories by Simon Van Booy and David Vann over the past year.
Don’t you just love her author photo? My goodness, the lines, the lightness, the movement in it …
About the Author:
Deborah Willis was born and raised in Calgary, AB. Her fiction has appeared in Grain, Event, Prism International, and The Walrus. Her first book, Vanishing and Other Stories, was named one of the Globe and Mail’s Best Books of 2009, and was nominated for the BC Book Prize and the Governor General’s Award. She has worked as a horseback riding instructor and a reporter, and currently works as a bookseller in Victoria, BC.
Find out more about Deborah Willis by visiting her website, DeborahWillis.ca.
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