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    Small Ceremonies: A Novel
    Unavailable
    Small Ceremonies: A Novel
    Unavailable
    Small Ceremonies: A Novel
    Ebook219 pages3 hours

    Small Ceremonies: A Novel

    By Carol Shields

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    An accomplished biographer wants to create a compelling life story of her own in a novel by the New York Times–bestselling author of The Stone Diaries.

    What is the matter with me, I wonder. Why am I always the one who watches?
    Judith Gill lives with her husband, son, and daughter in a nice house in the suburbs of Ontario. She has carved out a niche as a respected biographer. Her universe is shaped and bounded by the lives around her, from her family to the subjects of her books. She finds herself in the background of her life, but she hungers to tell stories of her own. In this witty, nuanced novel about art, life, love, and fiction, Carol Shields reveals Judith to readers and to herself—a woman with bold emotions, powerful instincts, and a knack for observing the small ceremonies that give our lives meaning. 
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherOpen Road Media
    Release dateDec 17, 2013
    ISBN9781480459526
    Unavailable
    Small Ceremonies: A Novel
    Author

    Carol Shields

    Carol Shields’s novels include Unless; Larry’s Party, winner of The Women’s Prize; The Stone Diaries, winner of the Pulitzer Prize and shortlisted for the Booker Prize; The Republic of Love; Happenstance; and Mary Swann. Dressing Up for the Carnivaland Various Miracles, collections of short stories, were later published as The Collected Stories. Brought up in Chicago, Shields lived in Canada from 1957 until her death in 2003.

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    Reviews for Small Ceremonies

    3.5/5

    7 ratings6 reviews

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    • 4/5
      Companion novel to 'The Box Garden'
    • 4/5
      [Small Ceremonies] would have been a one-sitting read for me, if there hadn't been other things I absolutely HAD to set it aside for. Judith Gill is a wife, mother and biographer currently working on a comprehensive life of [[Susanna Moodie]]. She hopes to research every last work and source until she finally "gets" the enigmatic woman. Meanwhile, Judith also reflects on the lives and behaviors of her husband, her children, and her friends. She gets a bit introspective about her own life, but not in an off-putting, navel-gazing sort of way. She analyzes off-hand comments, taking possibly more meaning from them than is intended, accepting some and rejecting others. The fundamental ordinariness of things, even certain big moments and lsating disappointments, ultimately brings some comfort and acceptance to Judith. This worked for me in the simple, understated way that Barbara Pym's novels do.July 2017
    • 4/5
      A middle aged woman spends lots of time at the library researching microfiche for a biography while her adolescent son waits for a letter (that never arrives), while his mother wonders what's with the skeins of wool in her husband's desk drawer. She spends a month in bed with the flu, ruminating on life. A novel plot gets stolen, several times over.

      Ironically, this is just the sort of plot that would never get stolen, because no one could do it justice like Carol Shields. It says something of the author's insight into human character and middle aged family life that this book was a page turner for me.
    • 4/5
      Explores the ethical and creative challenges faced by biographers and fiction writers, and how these two fields are not quite as separate as they ought to be, perhaps. The biographer, faced with a gap in the historical record, has to decide whether to make up the missing pieces, based on an educated guess--stepping a bit into the realm of fiction. Fiction writers pillage diaries, overheard conversations, discarded novels-in-progress, letters between lovers, raising the question: does fiction have to be all "made up"? The line between narrative nonfiction and historical fiction grows ever thinner, bringing to mind Pilate's question: "What is truth?" An enjoyable, quick read, though I found the first-person narrator not all that likable.
    • 4/5
      Biographer Judith Gill prides herself on detecting the secrets of her dead subjects, but fails entirely to understand the motives and behaviour of her family and friends.
    • 4/5
      Well written, as one comes to expect of Carol Shields. Ending was a little abrupt and did not solve much at all, but perhaps that was the point. A nice read, not particularly intellectual or provocative, but fun and insightful.