7/3/2023 0 Comments Late Breaking by K.D. MillerYet all is not bleakness and melancholy: A “failed writer with a useless degree,” begrudgingly supported by his wife, finally wins her encouragement. When he discloses that he has been diagnosed with breast cancer, she impulsively “wants to cover and warm him” but is unable to touch him, much less offer words of comfort (“Flesh”). In “Witness,” a widow strains to feel warmth for her taciturn son. A man yearning for love becomes entranced by an octopus floating in an aquarium who seems, uncannily, to know his heart. A retired teacher, whose domineering wife was hit by a car while jaywalking, suffers more from the death of his beloved beagle than the loss of his spouse (“The Last Trumpet,” “Crooked Little House”). Connections with animals prove purer, deeper, and certainly less fraught than relationships between humans. Widows or widowers unhappily married, never married, or divorced parents estranged from a child: All are lonely, often bewildered, burdened by the pain of their past, and seeing only slim possibilities for happiness in their future. An undercurrent of the surreal pulses through 10 linked stories.įiction writer and essayist Miller ( All Saints, 2014, etc.), whose work appears in Best Canadian Short Stories, gently examines the lives of men and women in their 60s and beyond, haunted by guilt, regret, and loss.
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