Description
Whether we are eavesdropping on the imaginative Saturdays of a Portuguese cleaning lady or living through a divorced woman’s search for the elusive orgasm. Norma Harrs manages in this collection of short stories to absorb the essence of her narrator’s psyche with the clarity of a good actress who gets under the very skin of her characters.
Love, either the absence of or yearning for, is the theme that links that stories in this collection together. Love for a family member, a friend, a lover, or a husband, and sometimes that lack of reciprocity, is the element that gives the stories poignancy and force.
The variety in these stories keeps the reader always guessing. The author doesn’t limit us to the easy answers, but brilliantly provokes us to enlarge our own landscape.
Contributor Notes
Norma Harrs came to Canada from Ireland as a young woman. She is the author of A Certain State of Mind and Love Minus One & Other Stories. A number of her stories have been recorded by Telstar Records and her work has been broadcast on CBC Radio. Norma lives in Toronto.
Editorial Reviews
"Harrs knows about people and love, and it shows."
— Winnipeg Free Press
"There's a wonderfully satisfying sense of the delicate art of eavesdropping."
"Her great strength in short-story writing is perhaps in bringing the talents of journalist and actor to the development of her characters' psyche."
— Rod Currie
"Amid the cacophony of experimental writing emanating from Canadian small presses these days, Norma Harris' Love Minus One & Other Stories strikes a distinctive note."
— Books in Review
