[.ca] Southern Stories: The Selected Stories of Clark Blaise (ISBN 0889842191)

Amazon.ca:
Southern Stories, the first volume of Clark Blaise's selected stories, drops the reader waist-deep in the swamps of Florida. This is not the Florida of oranges and tourism. It is the South of segregation, cross burnings, and police brutality, where poverty makes the characters aware of the minute details of their physical environment: "It was blistering hot inside. Even the swarm of fruit flies buzzing around the mounds of lavender-crusted oranges were anxious to escape." Many of the stories revolve around the experiences of young boys, giving Southern Stories the feel of a memoir. (Blaise, born to Canadian parents, spent much of his childhood in the American South.) Characters reappear, usually in or near the town of Hartley. While the harsh circumstances there can sometimes harden, some people, like Frankie in "Giant Turtles, Gliding in the Dark," remain sensitive: "What was bad about worms was their helplessness. They were meant to be hurt. There wasn't anything that could happen to a worm besides getting stepped on in the rain or being squished on a hook." Later pieces examine a Canadian family's pursuit of the American Dream. "A North American Education" begins as a young boy's suburban sexual awakening--"How close it was to madness"--and ends as a sweet tribute to his father, bringing to mind Philip Roth's early works. In a book rich with history, Blaise, with his French-Canadian characters leaping into the American melting pot, showcases an increasingly common figure, the North American. --Moe Berg