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Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage. This book is a collection of nine stories, all of which take place in the tiny towns and burgeoning cities of southern Ontario and British Columbia. A few reveal youth: in the title story, an epistolary prank by two teenage girls leads to a one-sided cross country elopement and, seemingly, a happy marriage, and in "Nettles," disrupted childhood affection fleetingly returns through a chance meeting. However, most are stories of aging women and men, confronting both death and late love. In nearly every story there's a contrast between the behavior and expectations of country people and those who have made it to Toronto or Vancouver. Most of the stories depict the bargains women make with life and the measureless price they pay, and regardless of situation, the basics of survival are endured in stoic sorrow. The stories' plots are elaborate yet unsentimental and powerful. "These tales have the intimacy of a family photo album and the organic feel of real life." —The New York Times Louisa May Alcott's Christmas Treasury: The Complete Christmas Collection. The values of innocence, generosity, charity, compassion, truth, loyalty, and honesty that are exemplified by characters in every one of these short stories are so appropriate for Christmas, the time when we are most likely to set aside our cynicism and pessimism. I read them aloud to Cameron and Jan while we were on vacation, and Cameron, especially, found them charming and appreciated the happy endings. Reading them took me back to my childhood, when I must have read Little Women four or five times, and Little Men at least twice. It made me realize how much I had enjoyed those books, and how much the values and optimism expressed in them probably influenced my own world view. Alcott was far from naive about the hardships of life (she grew up quite poor herself, and the success of her writing saved her family from lifelong poverty); her optimism about the goodness in people is a lesson worth reviewing. You Are Not a Stranger Here. This is a compilation of beautifully written stories that touched me, a few times astonished me, and definitely will stay with me. The themes connecting the stories are the complex phenomena of depression, mental illness, and "otherness," and the powerful connection between those who suffer and those who attempt to alleviate that suffering. My favorite was "Notes to My Biographer," in which the narrator, in a burst of manic impulse, decides to visit a son he has not seen in years. His irascible sense of humor propels the story until we learn that his son treats his inherited disease with medication that the father won't ingest; reconciliation is only possible if the son stops taking his. The story progresses at a furious gallop that is as irresistible as the narrator's manic dreams. In other stories, a psychiatrist’s encounter with a reluctant patient reveals a young doctor’s own needs and fears; an orphaned boy finds solace in a classmate’s violence; the return of an old lover disturbs the peace between a brother and sister who have lived together for decades. I found these uncompromising and realistic, yet compassionate, representations to be compelling and memorable. One reviewer called Haslett's occasional surprise endings, O. Henry-esque in their ironic twists, as "a bit too fancy," but they never seemed sensational to me; instead, I thought them revealing and satisfyin.
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