sewn paper
e-mail the Author
Other great debut Uncomfortably Numb, Aquarium, Influence of the Moon, Bad Imaginings, The One with the News,
Fiction; FIC 029000
Spring 2003
240 pages
ISBN 0-88984-264-7
$18.95
collections from PQL:
by Sharon English
by Mike Barnes
by Mary Borsky
by Caroline Adderson
by Sandra Sabatini
The Rule
of Last Clear Chance
Judith McCormack
Fresh, imaginative, witty - these have all been used to describe Judith McCormack's stories, gathered here in a powerful debut collection. Her offbeat characters, many of them lawyers, provide a lively look at the absurdities which lie beneath the skin of everyday life. A grocer who sells lobsters, a Cuban apothecary, a hapless thief, and a dreamy lawyer who navigates by smell are some of the people who fall in and out of trouble in these stories. The collection follows their restless attempts to find footing in a colourful but tricky landscape. All of this is detailed in language with a remarkable sense of cadence, punctuated with tart insights.
Shortlisted for the 2004 Commonwealth Writers Prize,
Best First Book Category (Canada & Caribbean Region)
`This is her debut collection, and I have to say I was pretty amazed by it.
Her writing is just so -- it's witty and it's funny and it's very readable,
she's got these wonderful little observations that just strike you as very
humourous. She reminded me a lot of Carol Shields, actually. ...
The wit, the pathos, the aptness of the images is just wonderful. ...
She's amusing, she's witty, she's got a deft turn of phrase.'
- CBC Radio, Windsor
`McCormack sets a new standard for short-story writing in this debut collection, and perhaps more importantly, for seeing life in all of its dimensions. We need more writers like her.'
-- Linda M Bayley, Canadian Book Review Annual
`[MCormack's] own language is sharply honed
without being studied or precious - perhaps some of her descriptions of
smells are a little over the top, but those descriptions are almost a
special case. Generally, her language doesn't call attention to itself
in that way. To echo her character's thought about the word "judging,"
McCormack's vocabulary is sinewy without being gelatinous.
She also possesses another valuable tool of the writer, an analogical
imagination - she sees the relations between unlike things. In "Plural,"
a story about twins, for example, she turns a laundry chute in a house
into a very convincing metaphor for a birth canal. Finally, she captures
the details of daily routine in a way that gives immense life to her
narratives - whether it's the banging of a venetian blind, caught in a
breeze, against a window frame, or a man "trying to put a glove on with
one hand by trapping it against his side."'
- Phil Marchand, Toronto Star
`McCormack's prose resembles high realism in the way it adjusts
reality into hyper-sharp focus. Smell is obviously important to
McCormack and her descriptions create an almost animal-like heightened
sense of reality. For instance, the protagonist in the title story
compares the smell of the Highway Traffic Act to "burnt sugar".'
-- Robert Reid, the Kitchener-Waterloo Record
`Devastatingly good'
- John Metcalf
`[An] extraordinary new collection'
- The Ottawa Citizen
`Judith McCormack writes with the fluidity and confidence of a natural,
and her stories are a joy to read.'
- Nino Ricci
`The stories are rich with bang-on physical description, unforced
natural dialogue and the telling particulars of daily life.... The
Rule of Last Clear Chance is a collection of substance ... a debut to
be savoured.'
- Quill & Quire
`The Rule Of Last Clear Chance is an anthology of deftly written
and somewhat askew short stories by Judith McCormack which offer the
reader an engaging, entertaining, and rather different take on
life. Among the many colorful characters are a lawyer who navigates
by smell, a grocer who sells lobsters, and a hapless thief who should
have (perhaps) chosen a life of white-collar crime instead. Double
entendres, language slanted with a dash of the bizarre, and an
abiding insight into the drives of human nature color these unforgettable
tales. The Rule Of Last Clear Chance documents Judith McCormack as
a wonderfully and uniquely gifted storyteller!
- The Midwest Book Review
`McCormack emerges as a skilled storyteller unlike any I've
encountered. The weightiness of themes -- good luck and bad, happiness
and misery, chance and choice and responsibility -- is filtered pleasingly
through the wry voice of a character in one story; another unfolds effortlessly,
redolent with atmosphere and a detailed evoking of a period setting
(19th century Havana) and manners. Seemingly random plotting gathers
itself to a gentle burst of catharsis that beautifully integrates
the whole.'
-- Jim Bartley, the Globe and Mail
Photo by Edie Steiner