Additional information
by Carol Shields (Author)
Winner of the Marian Engel Award: Passion, longing, regret, and transformation infuse these twelve tales by one of our most "shrewd and skillful" storytellers (Chicago Tribune)
"Milk Bread Beer Ice" is a road trip shared by a husband and wife who no longer communicate through meaningful dialogue. Fifty-year-old "Hazel" is forced to enter an alien workplace after the sudden death of her husband. In "Today Is the Day," the village women gather together for their annual ritual of planting blisterlilies. And "Family Secrets" travels to DeKalb, Illinois, and the First World War, as the narrator searches for a missing year in her mother's life . . . and unearths a surprising connection to Ernest Hemingway.
From a group of musicians who discover they share more than classical "Chemistry" to an unhappily married couple who may get a second chance, this remarkable collection, like the ageless orange fish of the title story, is filled with the wonder and magic of everyday life.
Author Biography
Carol Shields (1935-2003) was born in Oak Park, Illinois. She studied at Hanover College, the University of Exeter in England, and the University of Ottawa. In 1957, she married Donald Shields and moved to Canada permanently. She taught at the University of Ottawa, the University of British Columbia, and the University of Manitoba, and served as chancellor of the University of Winnipeg. She wrote ten novels and three short story collections, in addition to poetry, plays, criticism, and a biography of Jane Austen. Her novel The Stone Diaries won the Pulitzer Prize, the Governor General's Award, and the National Book Critics Circle Award; it was also shortlisted for the Booker Prize. Shields was further recognized with a Canada Council Major Award, two Canadian National Magazine Awards, the Canadian Authors Association Award, and countless other prizes and honors.
