A Celibate Season - Softcover

Carol Shields novels include Larry's Party (1997), winner of the 1998 Orange Prize; The Stone Diaries (1993), winner of the Pulitzer Prize and short-listed for the Orange Prize. Born and brought up in Chicago, Carol Shields has lived in Canada since 1957. Blanche Howard is the author of three previous novels.

An unexpectedly appealing epistolary novel by Canadian novelist Shields (Larrys Party, 1997, etc.) and playwright Howard. The first problem with a contemporary epistolary novel is one of credibility: Apart from e-mail, who nowadays writes enough letters to form a book? The explanation offered here (that a husband and wife agree in advance to communicate only through the mail for one year) isnt very plausible, but it suffices for the sake of the story. Jocelyn, or Jock (whose sections are written by Howard), starts things off with a letter to her husband Charles, or Chas (authored by Shields). Jock is a lawyer from Vancouver who has just accepted a one-year post on a government commission (to study the feminization of poverty) in Ottawa, leaving Chas behind to look after their teenaged children Greg and Mia. Chas is an unemployed architect whos happy to play Mr. Mom while looking for work and writing an occasional poem on the side. In Ottawa, Jock quickly learns how to deal with the assorted policy wonks and egomaniacs who populate the political world, while Chas refines his skills at groveling in cover letters and feigning enthusiasm for projects that make his blood run cold. Naturally, the two miss each other, yet a strain quickly creeps into their relations after the first few weeks apart. Chas is hard-pressed to juggle his work and family at once, and both of his kids (especially Mia) are at an age when a mothers hand is greatly needed. Jock, meanwhile, cant even remember what home life is like, subsisting as she does in a succession of hotel rooms and tiny apartments. When she returns briefly for Christmas, she doesnt even recognize her own homeliterally so, since Chas has renovated it. Eventually, she has to decide whether to accept an extension of her appointment. What would you do? A totally lackluster story, yet narrated with enough charm to draw any reader in. -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.