So begins Forde Abroad. In the 15 years that Metcalf has worked as Senior Editor of the Porcupine's Quill, he has found little time for fiction of his own, but we need read no further than this first paragraph to see that Metcalf-the-writer is on top of his game. Forde Abroad is characterized by the same knack for word choice and impeccable sense of timing that gained Metcalf his reputation as one of the best prose stylists of his generation.

We first met Robert Forde in `Travelling Northward', the final story in Metcalf's 1986 collection Adult Entertainment: Forde the writer, Forde the aesthete, Forde the much-abused. Forde who loves his coffee but must have tea because it's `better for his health', as his wife Sheila reminds him.

Forde Abroad takes Forde from Ottawa to Ljubljana, to attend a meeting of the Literary and Cultural Association of Slovenia - or, as Sheila puts it, to consort with Slovenians. There, he will meet Drago, his Serbian-language translator. He will meet Christopher, a gay British expatriate from Sweden who is `an expert on all things Yugoslavian'. Most importantly, he will meet Karla, his literary friend and correspondent - or, as Sheila puts it, his `Commie pen pal': `When the prick stands up,' says Sheila, `the brains sink into the ass.'

`John Metcalf is the son of an English Methodist minister who spent a lifetime preaching the Word; Metcalf himself, in a classic case of generational revolt, shed religious concerns early, yet clearly inherited from his father a passion for the now-secularized, lower-case word. This observation may smack of "amateur psychology", but it can serve, I think, as a viable and meaningful literary-critical myth (in the best sense of that much-abused term). For Metcalf, words (up to and including the least conspicuous article), their order, positioning rhythm, interrelations, are invariably crucial to his effect. So are paragraphing, the use of italics, and punctuation (he lays emphasis on the semi-colon, which is why I inserted one -- correctly, I trust -- in my opening sentence).'
    - W.J. Keith, Books in Canada

`Forde Abroad is a superb work. Its artistry arises exactly because of Metcalf's ability to mirror the ``realness of the world'', especially at its most bizarre, a skill he handles with an economy so masterful that, like the rejuvenated Forde, it leaves us sated yet desiring more.'
    - Shaun Smith, Quill & Quire

`The sequel to the short story "Travelling Northward", Forde Abroad by John Metcalf (Senior Editor of The Porcupine's Quill) is a superbly crafted short novel that again presents Robert Forde, a writer, aesthete, and henpecked husband (Robert's loving wife rather insistently prefers him to drink tea instead of coffee because it's "better for his health"). Forde Abroad brings Robert from his Ottawa home to Ljubljana in order to attend a meeting of the Literary and Cultural Association of Slovenia. Quirky and engaging personalities range from a professional Serbian language translator, to a gay British expatriate from Sweden who is a Yugoslavian expert, to Forde's longstanding literary correspondent Karla. A literate and thoroughly entertaining story fill the pages of this engaging, brief, and highly recommended work of original fiction.'
    - The Midwest Book Review, Oregon WI

`Metcalf's relationship with Canadian literature since his arrival from Britain in 1962 has been one of both economy and expansiveness. His own creative work has been relatively sparse during the last couple of decades (the last collection of his new work, Adult Entertainment, appeared in 1986). But the Porcupine's Quill, where Metcalf is senior editor, has enriched Canadian literature with contributions from young writers such as Terry Griggs and Mike Barnes. Metcalf contends that literature's value should be based on aesthetics, not (as is often the case with Canadian writing) thematic content. Forde, no doubt Metcalf's proxy, tells his Slovenian proté©é, ``art arises from the realness of the world. [It] encompasses ideas but it's not about ideas. It's more concerned with feeling. And you capture the feeling through things, through particularity.'' Any new book by Metcalf is to be welcomed, and Forde Abroad is no exception.'
    -- Matt Hartmann, Canadian Book Review Annual

`As a comic writer, as a satirist and as a sensitive recorder of human passion, Metcalf is highly skilled.... [His fiction] is a tonic antidote ... to the earnestness and torpor of so much of our good-for-you canon.'
    - Russell Smith

`John Metcalf often comes as close to the baffling, painful comedy of human experience as a writer can get.'
    - Alice Munro