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Stories
by Carrianne LeungIn this exquisite American debut, Carrianne Leung evokes the legacies of Cheever and Munro with a haunting depiction of 1970s suburbia.
In her "compact gem of a collection" (Globe & Mail), Carrianne Leung enlivens a singular group of characters sharing a shiny new subdivision in 1970s Toronto. Marilyn greets new neighbors with fresh-baked cookies before she starts stealing from them. Stay-at-home-wife Francesca believes passion is just one yard away, only in the arms of another man. And Darren doesn't understand why his mother insists he keep his head down, even though he gets good grades like his white friends. When a series of inexplicable suicides begin to haunt their community, no one is more fascinated by the terrible phenomenon than young June. The daughter of Chinese immigrants, she sits hawk-eyed at the center, bearing witness to the truth behind pulled curtains: the affairs, the racism, the hidden abuses.
Leung bursts onto the American literary stage with prose remarkably attuned to the tenuous, and perhaps deceptive, idea of happiness among these picket-fenced lives.
Suburbia gets a bad rap, but it's where so many of us come from, so it's heartening to see a writer taking it seriously. And although this particular community has more than its fair share of unhappy secrets, the connections that form between unlikely allies – like Poh Poh and June's friend Nav, who's persecuted for his effeminate behavior – are sparks of hope. As June reports, "My father once said that it was never completely dark in the suburbs. Light was always escaping and spilling everywhere."..continued
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(Reviewed by Rebecca Foster).
Linked short stories, novels in stories, story cycles – these are terms for collections in which the stories are not all discrete pieces with separate worlds and characters. Instead, characters recur, whether subtly or overtly, and multiple stories have the same setting. What makes linked short stories so enjoyable, and what sets them apart from novels? I started by asking Carrianne Leung, author of That Time I Loved You, why she chose this format. "It's the different gazes that really animate the relationships and sense of place for me," she replied. Many in the online book community agree that linked short stories are an excellent way to explore points of view. "I feel [the form] allows a more expansive view of a community and ...
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