Katherine Govier. Fables of Brunswick Avenue (1985) Sixteen stories, sixteen people who win some and lose some. Govier’s tales tend to gloom and faint despair. Most of her characters are or were young women hoping to make a career in some art or craft. Govier tells of how they came to settle for something less than they expected, of how love and marriage demand compromises and accommodations that are rarely apportioned equitably. But losing the game doesn’t equate to defeat, a paradox that elders like me have come to understand only too well. Something like self-respect can be reconstructed from the salvaged bits. And at the very least, there’s new insight, which sometimes is worth the cost.
Govier writes well. Throughout, there’s the feeling that she writes from experience. Like Alice Munro, she shows us how people’s characters define or limit their choices. But her portraits are kinder, like photos taken with a soft-focus lens to hide the wrinkles.
Recommended. ***
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