Friday Fiction: Carol Shields

--by Hanje Richards

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Carol Ann Shields (June 2, 1935 – July 16, 2003) was an American-born Canadian author. She is best known for her 1993 novel The Stone Diaries, which won the U.S. Pulitzer Prize for Fiction as well as the Governor General's Award in Canada.

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The youngest of three children, Carol Shields was born in Oak Park, Illinois in 1935. She studied at Hanover College, the University of Exeter in England, and the University of Ottawa, where she received an M.A. In 1957, she married Donald Hugh Shields, a professor of Civil Engineering, and moved to Canada. In addition to raising five children, all of whom are now grown, Shields worked as an editorial assistant for the journal Canadian Slavonic Papers and as a professor at the University of Ottawa, the University of British Columbia, and the University of Manitoba.

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Shields passed away on July 16, 2003, at the age of 68, due to complications from breast cancer. She was in the process of writing a new book at the time of her death.

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Box Garden - Charleen, a divorced woman attending her widowed mother's second wedding, makes startling discoveries about other family members attending the reunion and achieves a new understanding of herself and her own life.

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Collected Stories - Appearing first is her last unpublished tale, "Segue," about an aging couple in failing health - he a famous novelist, she a writer of sonnets - who grow apart as they take "responsibility for [their] own dying bodies." The story serves as a poignant tribute. Overall, Shields' touch is gorgeously light, her tales capturing brief, evanescent moments in the busy lives of couples, mothers and lonely wives. Playing with language, exploring intimate relationships, and examining small town life through Shields’ eyes are all contained in this volume.

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Jane Austen - In this biography, Carol Shields explores the life of a writer whose own novels have engaged and delighted readers for the past two hundred years. In Jane Austen, Shields follows this superb and beloved novelist from her early family life in Steventown to her later years in Bath, her broken engagement, and her intense relationship with her sister Cassandra. She reveals both the very private woman and the acclaimed author. With its fascinating insights into the writing process from an award-winning novelist, Shields’ magnificent biography of Jane Austen is also a compelling meditation on how great fiction is created.

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Larry’s Party - Larry Weller, born in 1950, is an ordinary guy made extraordinary by his creator's perception, irony, and tenderness. Larry's Party gives us, as it were, a CAT scan of his life in episodes between 1977-1997 that seamlessly flash backward and forward. We follow this young floral designer through two marriages and divorces, and his interactions with his parents, friends, and a son. Throughout, we witness his deepening passion for garden mazes – so like life, with their teasing treachery and promise of reward. Among all the paradoxes and accidents of his existence, Larry moves through the spontaneity of the ‘70s, the blind enchantment of the ‘80s, and the lean, mean ‘90s, completing at last his quiet, stubborn search for self. Larry's odyssey mirrors the male condition at the end of our century with targeted wit, unerring poignancy, and faultless wisdom.

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Republic of Love - Fay McLeod and Tom Avery are likable souls: kind to their parents, close to friends and co-workers, dedicated to their professions (she's a folklorist, he's a radio talk show host). But thus far, both have been unlucky in love. Fay has never married; Tom has married and divorced rather too often. Participating on the periphery of lives of married friends has begun to pall. They finally meet, and it is a coup de foudre for both, but Fay is leaving that night for a month of mermaid research in Europe. Even when she returns, their affair is jeopardized by upheavals in others' lives. Can a woman of letters find happiness with a spokesman for the commonplace?

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Small Ceremonies - Wife, mother, and biographer, Judith Gill finds her own life overshadowed by her need to observe and understand, becoming a woman whose world is shaped by the actions of others, until she discovers her own role as a translator and celebrant of life's small ceremonies.

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The Stone Diaries - One of the most successful and acclaimed novels of our time, this 1993 fictionalized autobiography of Daisy Goodwill Flett is a subtle but affecting portrait of an Everywoman reflecting on an unconventional life. What transforms this seemingly-ordinary tale is the richness of Daisy’s vividly described inner life — from her earliest memories of her adoptive mother to her awareness of impending death.

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The Stone Diaries won the 1995 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the 1993 Governor General's Award, the only book to have ever received both awards. It was nominated for the U.S. National Book Critics Circle Award and the 1993 Booker Prize, and was named one of the best books of the year by Publishers Weekly. It was also chosen as a "Notable Book" by The New York Times Book Review, which wrote "The Stone Diaries reminds us again why literature matters."

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Unless - For all of her life, 44 year old Reta Winters has enjoyed the useful monotony of happiness: a loving family, good friends, growing success as a writer of light "summertime" fiction. But this placid existence is cracked wide open when her beloved eldest daughter, Norah, drops out to sit on a gritty street corner, silent but for the sign around her neck that reads "GOODNESS." Reta's search for what drove her daughter to such a desperate statement turns into an unflinching and surprisingly funny meditation on where we find meaning and hope.