sewn paper
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Stories; FIC 290000
January 2005
160 pages
ISBN 0-88984-259-0
$16.95
Most Wanted
Vivette Kady
`Early that summer, my grandma dropped dead watching
The Price is Right, and the following week
Aunt Lois, my mother's sister, moved in and declared
we would no longer be running a breeding factory.'
The thirteen stories in Vivette J. Kady's Most Wanted drop
us into domestic landscapes we think we know -- until we are greeted
by a cross-dressing pigeon-fancier, a phone-sex worker and a three-legged
dog named Duane. Most Wanted begins with loss,
ends with solace, and strange things happen in between:
steak knives become darts, a mouse suffers
an agonizing death, an inner incubus is embraced,
and lightning strikes with amazing results.
Kady writes with the discipline of a master-builder,
but her brilliance comes from the manner in which her characters
transcend fractured relationships, confinement and longing, and move
out into the world whole and dignified. In strong, brave prose,
Kady is a compassionate observer of the bittersweet in life.
`A certain playfulness characterizes much of the new generation
of Canadian short fiction, and Vivette Kady's debut is no exception.
These stories progress swiftly, in clipped passages linked by
white space, so that one can almost watch the author's mind
at work, shaping and shifting as she chooses what to cut or keep.
`Vivette J Kady's debut, Most Wanted, is a collection of
13 short stories that are sharp, quick and unexpected -- call it
suckerpunch fiction.' `Vivette Kady writes impeccably about romance and family dysfunction. The 13 stories in Most Wanted explore the bizarre world of a cross-dressing widower who plays dad to a gaggle of pigeons, a phone-sex worker and a three-legged dog named Duane. Kady's prose is silken, her authorial voice prominent, and she seduces the reader with her compassion and humour. As Kady's characters overcome broken relationships, loneliness and unfulfilled desires, they learn to rediscover the world with dignity and hope.' `Kady is at her best when taking familiar scenes of romantic and familial
dysfunction and infusing them with vivid detail and an impeccable
sense of timing.' `The 13 stories in Most Wanted, a debut collection by Toronto-based Vivette J. Kady, are a reminder of how hardy a plant literary fiction is. Small-press story collections are a marginal presence to begin with, even in the world of literary fiction. Such literary awards as the Giller Prize like to make token inclusion of such collections among finalists, although they never win. Book clubs pass them by, usually. Yet we would miss them if they disappeared. Sometimes they hold the mirror up to our society with greater clarity than good novels.' `Vivette J. Kady grew up overseas, in South Africa. It is partly
this that gives her such a keen perspective on human
location and dislocation. Her characters, who range
from teenage mothers to elderly dowsers, live
dangerous and troubled lives, marked by miscommunication
and pain, but also by intangible moments of joy. Indeed,
it is perhaps these strange joys that are most vivid
in her stories. ``Lightning isn't just one single
stroke that falls to the earth,'' says one of her characters. ``It
moves so quickly, we can't see it's actually rising, not falling.'' It
is this rise in the midst of apparent fall that courses through
Kady's work.' `On the final page, Kady ingeniously explodes the narative's snug
constraints. The daughter, given a lipstick, conceives of it as a weapon.
For one riveting paragraph, it's unclear if we're witnessing the girl's
desperate imagination (she has her own hurts and secrets) or a callow act
of cruelty. The story is a small, perfect gem.' `Vivette J Kady grew up in South Africa, but there is nothing
of that far land in these thirteen tales. Instead, the unknown continent
Kady explores is the human psyche. These stories present a startling array
of characters who blaze their way across page after page, redefining
dysfunction as they go. What seems to bind together Kady's odd
assortment of children, adults, even the occasional dog, is the unsteadiness
of their grip.'
-- Ali Riley, Calgary Herald
-- M J Stone, Hour
-- Stewart Cole, Quill & Quire
-- Philip Marchand, Toronto Star
-- Maggie Helwig, Coming Attractions: 00
-- Jim Bartley, the Globe & Mail
-- Nancy Wigston, Books in Canada
Vivette J. Kady is a seeing-eye human to a blind dog. She has climbed to the top of the highest dune in the Namib desert, and she used to be a go-go dancer, in South Africa.