A review of This Far Isn’t Far Enough by Lynn Sloan
January 4, 2018
Reviewed by Ruth Latta
This Far Isn’t Far Enough
by Lynn Sloan
Fomite Press
Feb 2018, ISBN 9781944388294
Internationally-known fine art photographer, Lynn Sloan, is also an accomplished writer. The fourteen short stories in her first collection, This Far Isn’t Far Enough, have all been published in literary magazines of note. “Bird”, for example, one of my favourites, appeared in the Connecticut Review.
In “Bird”, an American Midwestern grandmother, Martha, who has just buried her husband of many years, thinks back to the affair she had with Glenn, who predeceased her husband by seven years. Their affair ended when her husband found out and gave her an ultimatum. Post-funeral, a bird gets into her house – an omen of death, although this is not spelled out in the story. (For more about this superstition, read A Bird in the House by Margaret Laurence.) Two of the most significant people in Martha’s life have already died before the bird got indoors, and something else dies – her illusions.
Among her sympathy cards is one from Glenn’s widow, and, feeling a bond with her, Martha drives out into the country to drop in on her. Their meeting is cordial, but during its course, Martha learns something that shakes her version of the past.
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