Review of Any Mail? and Other Stories

Any Mail? and Other Stories

The nine stories Tougas offers here are as various in tone as they are in situation. Some of them are deeply moving, tinged with affection for characters destined for tragedy, like the little boy from the first story, "Treble Clef," who is abused by a young nun, or the homosexual couple from the last story "Any Mail?" who pay for their passion in blood. Others, by contrast, are hilarious, such as "The Wasp Slicer," an acid portrait of a French couple hosting their Canadian visitors, force-feeding them the beauties of France until they can't take any more. Savage, but droll. In "Claudia Cardinale," a literature professor amuses himself by debunking idols. Beginning from a quotation by Proust, who cautioned against theories in fiction, the narrator draws a parallel between Botticelli and the photographer Karsh, before stripping down the Marguerites, Yourcenar and Duras, hiding neither his boredom with the one's work, nor his admiration for the other's.


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