Varieties of Disturbance

Starred review from February 19, 2007
Davis's spare, always surprising short fiction was most recently collected in Samuel Johnson Is Indignant
. In this introspective, more sober culling, Davis touches on favorite themes (mothers, dogs, flies and husbands) and encapsulates, as in "Insomnia," everyday life's absurdist binds: "My body aches so—It must be this heavy bed pressing up against me." Davis is a noted translator (Swann's Way
), and a kind of passion—and bemused suffering—for points of rhetoric produces a delicate beauty in "Grammar Questions" ("Now, during his time of dying, can I say, 'This is where he lives'?") and "We Miss You: A Study of Get-Well Letters from a Class of Fourth-Graders," written to their hospitalized classmate. The longest selection, "Helen and Vi: A Study in Health and Vitality," examines the long lives of two elderly women, one white, one black, in terms of background, employment, pets and conversational manner. Most moving may be "Burning Family Members," which can be read as a response to the Iraq War: " 'They' burned her thousands of miles away from here. The 'they' that are starving him here are different." Davis's work defies categorization and possesses a moving, austere elegance.

April 15, 2007
Davis ("Samuel Johnson Is Indignant"), a novelist, translator, poet, and, most notably, author of short fiction, defies conventionality with her stories; some are as brief as a single sentence, while others are told in poetry. The writing is pithy and sparse, and there is often more left unsaid than there is written. "The Hand" is complete as follows: "Beyond the hand holding this book that I'm reading, I see another hand lying idle and slightly out of focusmy extra hand." The story "Jane and the Cane," about an elderly mother who cannot find her cane with the dog head, is one paragraph, and the rhythm of the text is strangely evocative of a children's story, a sort of geriatric Dick and Jane reader. A challenging book, with frequent jumps in voice, story, and style, this is not to be read through but rather sipped like a dry, wry martini. This collection will appeal to a limited audience where Davis's other works are appreciated.Caroline M. Hallsworth, Sudbury, Ont.

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