The Concert Party – Mavis Gallant




Let me first apologize to all the Mavis Gallant fans out there.
 
I’m sorry.  I’m sorry that I just can’t get into Mavis.
No matter how hard I’ve tried.  No matter how hard I’ve tried - not to try - and to just let the story flow into me…I just can’t get her.

And with that, it’s probably best that I say nothing more.
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Edie: A Life – Harriet Doerr





More interested in the author than the story.  Happy to find that Harriet published her first novel at the age of 73 in 1983 and with that novel, she went on to win a national Book Award.
 
It’s never too late!

I found this particular story a bit dry – I didn’t really connect with it but what I took away from the experience was learning about Doerr – the author.
   
There is a rich interview with the author on the Stanford University website (she finished her degree at the age of 67) and it seems that she simply wrote about what she knew…and with that, she was discovered.
In the Contributor’s Notes section in the back of this edition of BASS, she simply states that Edie was an actual person – someone she “knew when she was young”. 
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