Stones

Nine short stories look at contemporary relationships, the traditions of love, marriage, and family, and the impact of changing times. A brilliant collection of nine short stories that explores the realities of contemporary relationships, offers imaginative visions of urban life, and examines the divisive and destructive acts played out on the personal battlegrounds of family lifeWinner of the 1988 Edgar Award for Best Paperback Mystery forThe Telling of Lies,Timothy Findley has written novels (The Wars, Famous Last Words,andNot Wanted on the Voyage) much celebrated for their weighty and ambitious themes. InStones, Findley exposes the sharp changes in the traditional institutions of love, marriage, and family through a vivid terrain of images and insightful stories. Reflecting our changing times with stunning clarity, the tales reveal the menacing and enigmatic aspects of our daily lives.

In this collection of nine short stories Findley gives us a three-tiered look at life in the eighties as he explores the realities of contemporary relationships, offers imaginative visions of urban life, and examines the divisive and destructive acts played out on the personal battlegrounds of family life.

In Stones, Findley exposes the sharp changes in the traditional institutions of love, marriage, and family through a vivid terrain of images and insightful stories. Reflecting our changing times with stunning clarity, the tales reveal the menacing and enigmatic aspects of our daily lives.

Publishers Weekly

Edgar Award winner Findley's ( The Telling of Lies ) short stories leap from one crucial and vivid glimpse to another, building tension almost to the level of a Hitchcock movie, yet the author is also adept at a slower and more linear narrative style. The center of emotional gravity in the Toronto that Findley, a native, depicts is the Mental Health Centre on Queen Street. Its wards and its patients fascinate these protagonists, and the meaning of their lives grows out of their relationship to sanity and insanity. A number of characters experience what one narrator calls ``psychotic withdrawal,'' and several are psychiatrists or social workers. But Findley refuses to give psychology and its reasonable explanations the last word: instead, madness shares an unmarked border with passion and creativity; although failures to distinguish dream from reality can prove dangerous, Findley implies, forever separating the two can be deadening. The nine tales here explore similar situations from varied points of view, ultimately yielding a richly satisfying range of perspectives. (Feb.)

This is what Minna had written before she died: Bragg always said we shouldn't have the baby and everything was done a man can do to prevent it. Bragg and Minna A gift of mercy Foxes The sky Dreams The name's the same Real life writes real bad Almeyer's mother Stones