The Orange Fish: Stories - Softcover

"Infused with a sly humour, these poignant stories revel in the ordinary, with a few side trips to the sublime . . . both moving and wry." --The Washington Post
"Carol Shields deals in profound issues of human experience, drawing them from everyday existence with vulnerable honesty and a good dose of pain-killing humor." --The Philadelphia Inquirer
"Some of the most complex accounts of human nature I've read in a short story." --San Francisco Chronicle
"Reading [these stories] gives you a sense of art spilling over into life. . . . Even the briefest and apparently arbitrary details of life seem incandescent." --Toronto Star

Winner of the Marian Engel Award: Passion, longing, regret, and transformation infuse these twelve tales by one of our most "shrewd and skillful" storytellers (Chicago Tribune) "Milk Bread Beer Ice" is a road trip shared by a husband and wife who no longer communicate through meaningful dialogue. Fifty-year-old "Hazel" is forced to enter an alien workplace after the sudden death of her husband. In "Today Is the Day," the village women gather together for their annual ritual of planting blisterlilies. And "Family Secrets" travels to DeKalb, Illinois, and the First World War, as the narrator searches for a missing year in her mother's life . . . and unearths a surprising connection to Ernest Hemingway. From a group of musicians who discover they share more than classical "Chemistry" to an unhappily married couple who may get a second chance, this remarkable collection, like the ageless orange fish of the title story, is filled with the wonder and magic of everyday life.