Where the Money Went

May 4, 2009
In “The Birthday Girl,” one of nine tales of ruined or decaying relationships in Canty's third collection, a divorced father reaches out to a woman in a bar “to help, if I can, for just one night, her loneliness.” This yearning for companionship resonates throughout, though the choices and consequences are far from uniform. “They Were Expendable” sees a man turning to the comforts of television following the death of his wife, to whom he wants to remain faithful; an unexpected romance gives him new clarity. In “No Place in the World for You,” the volume's most memorable entry, a real estate agent and his harried wife cope with a bite-happy child while the agent's clients deal with their own marital drama. “The Emperor of Ice Cream” tracks two adult children of separated parents, the younger of whom has just been released from the hospital after a drunken car crash involving his older brother; conflicts reignite and place them in a new and dangerous situation. Canty exposes the cracks and seams in ordinary marriages, skillfully examining infidelity and the range of directions life can take once the relationship has ended.

June 1, 2009
Delicate stories of love and relationships, infidelities and breakups—and occasional, tentative movements toward reconciliation.

Canty (Winslow in Love, 2005, etc.) writes with vigor and a tender toughness that moves his characters with sad inevitability through their lives. In the title story, a gem of less than three pages, Braxton sits down to figure out where indeed the money went and finds his life has been one of waste, dissipation and self-indulgence: the"hippy school" for his daughter, the $1,000 bikes for him and his son, the extravagant ski vacation in Vail, his wife's drunkenly decadent behavior on the night of their initiatory pool party."The rest of the money, what there was of it, went for the lawyers," is the story's searing closing sentence."In the Burn" focuses on a firefighter's desire to impress his girlfriend's 11-year-old son by taking him to the site of a dangerous forest fire; instead, he ends up feeling,"that circle of love is closed…everyone else inside and me out in the dark.""Sleeping Beauty" reveals the fault lines in the marriages of two couples, while bachelor Andrew both witnesses and participates in their decline. In"The Birthday Girl," partier Gwen confesses,"the things that I want and the things that I need, I can't get them to match up." That statement pretty well characterizes the condition of most of Canty's characters. They want connection and relationships but end up with"the taste of ashes" in their mouths.

Canty writes incisively and pays special attention to the nuances of longing, bitterness and regret.

(COPYRIGHT (2009) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

June 1, 2009
In this collection of short stories mostly about broken marriages and extramarital affairs, children are only peripheral characters, but the sensibility and emotional honesty they show in two stories leave such an indelible mark that one wishes they appeared more often. Unfortunately, Canty ("Winslow in Love") focuses on adults, and, with the notable exception of his title story, a study of egocentricity, his treatment of them is less successful. All too often, Canty uses sex as a metaphor for a corrupt adult world full of betrayal, deception, and the shunning of personal responsibility and commitment. For example, in "Sleeping Beauty," the protagonist is sympathetic to his friend's wife, who has descended into alcoholism because of her husband's long-term affair with her best friend, yet he allows himself to be seduced by the wife. VERDICT While Canty sometimes seems to want us to believe that changing sexual partners will make life better, the moments of rebirth are so unconvincing that the stories often read like male fantasy. Only in the final tale does lust actually lead to a catharsis, as if the author suddenly had an epiphany. Optional.Victor Or, Surrey P.L. & North Vancouver City Lib., B.C.

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