Home Truths by Mavis Gallant
"Home Truths" is a collection of sixteen autobiographical short stories by Mavis Gallant that spans approximately twenty-five years, exploring the lives of Canadians both at home and abroad. The stories are narrated through the character of Linnet Muir, who parallels Gallant's own experiences as she transitions from high school in New York to wartime Montreal, ultimately becoming a reporter. Through Linnet's perspective, Gallant offers a critique of Canadian society, characterizing it as cautious, dull, and conformist, particularly focusing on the English-speaking population. The collection is divided into three thematic sections: "At Home," "Canadians Abroad," and "Linnet Muir," each delving into aspects of Canadian identity and the complexities of belonging. Notably, stories like "The Ice Wagon Going Down the Street" and "Virus X" highlight feelings of dislocation among Canadians in foreign contexts and touch upon broader themes of time, memory, and the essence of being Canadian. Gallant's writing transcends national boundaries, suggesting that feelings of exile and alienation are universal human experiences. Overall, "Home Truths" invites readers to reflect on identity and the subtleties of cultural belonging through the lens of a distinctly Canadian narrative.
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Subject Terms
Home Truths by Mavis Gallant
First published: 1981
The Work
In this collection of sixteen short stories written over an approximately twenty-five-year period, all deal with Canadians at home or abroad; all the stories are autobiographical. Mavis Gallant speaks through the voice of Linnet (also the name of a bird, like Mavis) Muir. Paralleling the author’s life, Linnet, on being graduated from high school in New York, returns to wartime Montreal, marries a Canadian, and eventually finds a job as a reporter. During her stint, Linnet overhears derogatory remarks about the need to hire women because the men are away.
Gallant’s alter ego is not above more direct criticism of Canadians. As Gallant had in an article she had written as a reporter in The Standard Magazine of Montreal of March 30, 1946, in this collection Linnet finds them cautious, dull, passive, noncommittal, given to conform in dress and mindset, and distrustful of the imagination. Commenting on her return to Montreal, Linnet narrates: “I was entering a poorer and a curiously empty country, where the faces of the people gave nothing away.” The target is primarily English-speaking Canadians, the group to which Gallant nominally belongs.
The three sections of the collection—“At Home,” “Canadians Abroad,” and “Linnet Muir”—elaborate on this theme of Canadian identity. For example, in “The Ice Wagon Going Down the Street,” Peter Frazier and Agnes Brusen discover that for different reasons, they do not belong to their Canadian-peopled milieu abroad. In “Virus X” referring to a mysterious sickness that shook post-World War II Europe and was used as a symbol of Europe’s spiritual malaise, Lottie Benz, whose parents have come from Germany, is contrasted with Vera Rodna, a Ukrainian classmate from Winnipeg. The Linnet Muir cycle of six stories in particular affirms many of the home truths about time, memory, history, imagination, and last but not least, the meaning of being Canadian. As Gallant writes in an introduction to the Canadian edition of the collection: “A Canadian who did not know what it was to be Canadian would not know anything else: he would have to be told his own name.” Through Linnet Muir, Gallant describes her own spiritual and emotional journey from exile into identity. Although on the face of it these short stories are about Canadian home truths, Gallant may also be writing about a nameless country of the imagination and about the fact that feeling exiled or alienated is not merely a Canadian condition.
Bibliography
Booklist. LXXXI, April 1, 1985, p. 1100.
Canadian Fiction Magazine: A Special Issue on Mavis Gallant, no. 28, 1978. Written by many Canadian essayists and critics such as Robertson Davies and George Woodcock, this special issue includes a collection of criticism, reviews of Gallant’s work, and a listing of her publications to 1978.
Grant, Judith Skelton. “Mavis Gallant and Her Works.” In Canadian Writers and Their Works: Fiction Series, edited by Robert Lecker, Jack David, and Ellen Quigley. Vol. 8. Toronto: ECW Press, 1989. An essay describing the evolution of Gallant’s short fiction in terms of her successful narrative technique and themes.
Hancock, Geoff. “Mavis Tries Harder.” Books in Canada 7, no. 6 (July, 1978): 4-8. this feature article praises Gallant for her contributions to Canadian literature and offers critical insight into her short stories and novels spanning decades and continents.
Hatch, Ronald B. “Mavis Gallant: Returning Home.” Atlantis: A Women’s Studies Journal 4, no. 1 (Fall, 1978): 95-102. A criticism claiming that Gallant’s work has continued to change, from general observations about individuals and personal freedom to accounts of social upheaval and change stemming from her own experiences.
Keefer, Janice Kulyk. Reading Mavis Gallant. New York: Oxford University Press, 1989. A close look at Gallant’s writing, covering criticism and the different periods of her work and her life. Childhood and women, two important areas of her work, are also examined, as is her nonfiction. Both sympathetic and analytical, Keefer provides a comprehensive interpretation of Gallant’s writing.
Keefer, Janice Kulyk. “Strange Fashions of Forsaking: Criticism and the Fiction of Mavis Gallant.” Dalhousie Review 64, no. 4 (Winter, 1984-1985): 721-735. A defense of Gallant’s work, claiming that for the most part, she has received little recognition of the importance of her literary achievement. Keefer claims that Gallant’s work not only has not been well received but also has been misinterpreted.
Kirkus Reviews. LIII, February 1, 1985, p. 100.
Library Journal. CX, May 1, 1985, p. 76.
Ms. XIII, June, 1985, p. 76.
The Nation. CCXL, June 15, 1985, p. 748.
The New Republic. CXCII, May 13, 1985, p. 40.
The New York Times Book Review. May 5, 1985, p. 1.
Publishers Weekly. CCXXVII, February 22, 1985, p. 153.
Ross, Robert. “Mavis Gallant and Thea Astley on Home Truths, Home Folk.” Ariel 19, no. 1 (January, 1988): 83-89. A comparative study of the meaning and use of “home” in both Gallant’s Home Truths and Astley’s A Boat Load of Home Folk.
Time. CXXV, May 27, 1985, p. 88.
Washington Post Book World. XV, April 14, 1985, p. 1.