April 3, 2014 0

Mavis Gallant

By in ballpoint pen, black and white, heads

MavisG

I think my face drawing skills are progressing as I practice them. The bad thing is if you stop, you lose a certain amount of skill, and have to roll the rock up the hill again.

This is the late Mavis Gallant, whose collection “Home Truths” I am reading, for the second time. The stories are funny, if mordant and somewhat gloomy. I don’t think I’d be happy hanging out with her in Paris, and she’d probably not want me around.

Still, she’s a brilliant writer, and many images and observations of hers will stay with me for a long time, even if she does remind me of a black and white wartime and 1950s Canada.

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