By Alan Hustak on May 6, 2009
Mavis Gallant has spent a life time doing what many writers can only dream of – living in Paris and consistently crafting some of the finest short stories in the English language that have been published for six decades in the New Yorker. Reading Going Ashore, the thirty or so recently published short stories that Gallant wrote early in her remarkable career, not only demonstrates how durable her work has always been, but also serves as a reminder of just how important the art of the short story remains to those who make their living as writers. In a digital age that threatens the survival of newspapers and mass circulation magazines, renders the novel impotent and makes biography almost irrelevant, the short story might be the last salvation for those who care about literate expression.
