Varied stories offer insight into human condition

English-born Vancouver Island writer Pauline Holdstock, a veteran novelist and essayist, offers up a new collection of 12 short stories, many of which have already appeared in journals and magazines. The stories are remarkably varied in many ways — subject matter, characters and situations.

One of her most delightful characters is Vita, who stars in two of the stories. In Perfect Obedience, she has her partner Nick agree to getting a dog. The one she gets is a big glossy black hound named Abigail, and within a day Nick wants to get rid of it. Vita’s reaction is to leave Nick and take Abigail with her. She and the dog move in with two of her friends.

The second Vita story takes place years later. Vita Has Brain Surgery perfectly captures the feelings and the thoughts one goes through before, during and after a serious operation. “In the hospital, all accoutrements of identity — occupation, status, gender — were irrelevant; individuality, autonomy, human dignity — mere incidentals. With the body stripped naked, both literally and figuratively, there was nothing but the body’s needs,” Holdstock writes.

The Vita stories are packed with distinctively different characters; in the book, those stories are separated from each other by a story called Release. It proves a real contrast in that it concentrates on one character, David Morgan, who, in the middle of the night, secretly takes off from his wife, family and home with no plan to return.

In Perfect Beauty, middle-aged Camilla works on looking 10 years younger. Her daughter Carson is unhappy with Camilla’s preoccupation, and the last straw for her comes when she catches her mom hugging Carson’s boyfriend Zeb at the back of the garage. Holdstock offers up some macabre humour when Camilla’s health suddenly deteriorates.

Three of the selections set up situations that are not developed into full-fledged short stories. These are Hanged Man, in which Cory and Tys find the body of a man hanging in the woods; Spot, in which Merv and Bri find a dog in the street; and the title story, What Endures, which ironically is like a foggy dream.

By contrast, Dear Geoffrey develops like a novel, with Geoffrey and wife Moira receiving a card from an old friend, Trevor, who tells them that he and his new wife Lolly will visit them in Vancouver when they take a trip from their home in England. Geoffrey and Moira decide to invite them for dinner and include four other guests. That will make it easier to avoid mentioning Trevor’s first wife Julie, or Moira’s past secret meetings with Trev.

The smooth way in which Holdstock slips from the narrator’s point of view into a character’s perspective is impressive. See Lolly’s reaction to the hosts: “She had expected Geoff and Moira to be a small riot but… yawn. Geoff was a boring blob but harmless, in the way of blobs. But Moira. Not a blob. A snob.” Holdstock also offers insight into the kind of people the other four guests are.

But the story does not end with the party. Days later, a legal letter arrives — to the surprise of Geoffrey and Moira — concerning Lolly and Trev.

There are four other stories, all quite different. Danny, Is That You? deals with a 15-year-old boy who lives in a garage and never speaks to his mother. Maternity Suit deals with Nicole, the new IT manager at Ridout & Finney — a young woman at work who gets pregnant. The Salve presents a postmistress and her concern for a woman named Maja whom people call “Old Miseryguts.” The book ends with The Five-Barred Gate, about two nuns — Sister Catherine and Sister Agnes — who live quietly in an old abbey livened up for only a short time by Sister Keira.

Pauline Holdstock can certainly take a bow for producing such a varied collection of short stories.

Dave Williamson is the author of 10 books, including a history of Red River College called Changing People’s Lives and a short story collection called Accountable Advances.