Carol Shields - Unless

I am already thinking about the third book in the trilogy: Autumn Thyme. It will open to a wide range of formal expression. I want the book to have the low moaning tone of an orchestral trombone and then to move upward toward a transfiguration of some kind, the nature of which has yet to be worked out. I want it to be a book that’s willing to live in one room if necessary. I want it to hold still like an oil painting, a painting titled: Seated Woman.

Woman at Rest. Half my work will have been done for me, at least for those who have read the first two books. These readers will stand ready to accept the fact that my Alicia is intelligent and inventive and capable of moral resolution, the same qualities we presume, without demonstration, in a male hero. It will be a sadder book than the others, and shorter.

The word autumn taps us on the head, whispering melancholy, brevity, which are tunes I know a little about. A certain amount of resignation, too, will attach itself to the pages of this third novel, a gift from Danielle Westerman, but also the heft of stamina. There you have it: stillness and power, sadness and resignation, contradictions and irrationality. Almost, you might say, the materials of a serious book.

Day by day Norah is recovering at home, awakening atom by atom, and shyly planning her way on a conjectural map. It is bliss to see, though Tom and I have not yet permitted ourselves wild rejoicing. We watch her closely, and pretend not to. She may do science next fall at McGill, or else linguistics. She is still considering this. Right now she is sleeping. They are all sleeping, even Pet, sprawled on the kitchen floor, warm in his beautiful coat of fur. It is after midnight, late in the month of March.

I would like to thank a number of others who in one way or another encouraged me in the writing of Unless : Sharon Allan, Marjorie Anderson, the late Joan Austen-Leigh, Joan Barfoot, Clare Boylan, Marg Edmond Brown, Joan Clark, Anne Collins, Cynthia Coop, Patrick Crowe, Maggie Dwyer, Darlene Hammell, Blanche Howard, Isabel Huggan, Carl Lenthe, Madeline Li, Elinor Lipman, Anna and Sylvie Matas, Margaret Shaw-Mackinnon, Don McCarthy, Peter Parker, Bella Pomer, Christopher Potter, Linda Rogers, Carole Sabiston, Floyd St. Clair, Eleanor Wachtel, Cindi Warner, Mindy Werner, the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, and, as always, my family: John, Audrey, Anne, Catherine, Meg, Sara, and, especially, Don.

About the Author

Carol Shields is the author of eight novels and two collections of short stories.

The Stone Diaries won the Pulitzer Prize and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize.

Larry’s Party won the Orange Prize. Born and brought up in Chicago, Carol Shields has lived in Canada since 1957.

THE WORKS OF CAROL SHIELDS

POETRY

Others

Intersect

Coming to Canada

NOVELS

Larry’s Party

The Stone Diaries

The Republic of Love

A Celibate Season (with Blanche Howard)

Swann

A Fairly Conventional Woman

Happenstance

The Box Garden

Small Ceremonies

STORY COLLECTIONS

Various Miracles

The Orange Fish

Dressing Up for the Carnival

PLAYS

Departures and Arrivals

Thirteen Hands

Fashion, Power, Guilt and the Charity of Families (with Catherine Shields)

Anniversary (with David Williamson)

CRITICISM

Susanna Moodie: Voice and Vision

Jane Austen

ANTHOLOGY

Dropped Threads: What We Aren’t Told

(Edited with Marjorie Anderson)