The World's Smallest Unicorn: Stories - Hardcover

MacKay, Shena

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1559212470 ISBN 13: 9781559212472

Publisher: Moyer Bell Ltd, 2000

Synopsis

A new collection of short fiction by the author of The Orchard of Fire, a Booker Prize finalist, introduces a host of memorable and bizarre characters, including a would-be biographer who visits a home for retired clowns and an elderly, once-fearless journalist who becomes paralyzed by terror at the thought of meeting the daughter of her dearest friend. 25,000 first printing.

About this title

From Publishers Weekly

Londoner Mackay's brilliant collection of stories about life's odd pots should add to her reputation as a brilliant satirist of social behavior. The 11 stories about life's lost souls and losers, scarred by drink, money, power or any number of other follies, capture a wide range of voices, settings and styles within finely tuned tales bearing one commonality: their excellent surprise endings. In the hilarious "Barbarians," Ian and Barbara Donaldson own an eponymous, fabulously successful children's clothing company, which has spawned a mail-order empire as well as a bevy of political, racial and labor issues. The punch line here lies in young Jack Donaldson's innocent rhyme about babies, unaware that both his parents are silently hoping that their extramarital liaisons have not resulted in any additional offspring. In "The Index of Embarrassment," Freddy, a gay man, visits his eccentric and prickly Uncle Bob out of pity and guilt. Bob is the author of The Definitive Index of Embarrassment, an obscure chronicle of all things gross and disgusting. When Bob's neighbor Dennis is discovered dead, the other characters are swamped in grief and contemplate their own mortality. Meanwhile, Uncle Bob's pressing concern is getting his ladder back, lent to the now expired Dennis some weeks earlier. A broad range of charactersDincluding the publishing executive who takes a nightmarish trip to India in search of an author whose next novel will undoubtedly be a bestsellerDtestify to Mackay's remarkable empathy for quirky people trapped in mundane circumstances. (Oct.) FYI: Mackay's 1996 novel, The Orchard on Fire, was shortlisted for the Booker Prize.
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Scottish author Mackay has an eye for the small moment and quirky detail, which helps define her characters, many of them a bit off-center themselves. In story after story in her new collection, pretensions are deflated, expectations are thwarted, and the ordinary is juxtaposed with the exotic and even absurd. In the title story, the glamorous sheen of Teddy's life in Hong Kong seems to offer his sister-in-law Fan a brief respite from her ordinary middle-class existence. In "Crossing the Border," when Flora goes to visit her great uncle at the Grimaldi House for retired clowns she is greeted by a staff that is briskly efficient in dealing with death. Several of Mackay's characters inhabit worlds of their own, such as reclusive Uncle Bob in the "The Index of Embarrassent," obsessively compiling his masterwork on embarrassing moments. Although her characters are often foolish and almost always disappointed, Mackay is never cruel; and her inventive use of colors, clothing, food, and the jumble of interiors and surroundings serves to enliven the prose and sharpen the view. Mary Ellen Quinn
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

About this edition

• Publisher: Moyer Bell Ltd
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 1559212470
• ISBN 13: 9781559212472
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 223