Arnopoulos effortlessly transports the reader to far-flung locations and back to Canada in this engaging collection of tales.
Sheila Arnopoulos’ book of short stories, Out of Bounds, portrays women facing issues of identity, community and survival. The stories are bound together through the experiences of a Montréal woman who travels extensively in Canada and other countries around the world.
From the first few pages when the protagonist discovers that her writing has distanced her from old friends who have made more conventional life choices, it’s clear that Arnopoulos creates women who have unique and fascinating lives. In “Mexican Doughnuts and Green Carnations,” her young heroine goes to visit her grandmother and discovers that she has an uncle who is a writer. He encourages her writing and invites her to return to visit him.
The stories reveal women on the cusp of new identities. Some were lied to about the truth of their ancestry, while others are drawn to cultures and lives very different from their own. The yearning that one finds in these pages is the territory of young womanhood. Their confidence blossoms as the women evolve into stronger people with a more defined sense of purpose and self.
In “Bigtree Girls,” a young woman discovers that she has Mohawk blood and pulls away from her racist Québécoise mother. She embarks on adventures in Indigenous territory where she explores her roots and is drawn to fulfill her Mohawk grandmother’s dreams.
Through these tales, Arnopoulos doesn’t shy away from digging into relationships, revealing the joys of finding decent partners and the horror of discovering their undercurrents of abuse. Her approach is both sensual and poetic, and a clear class consciousness permeates the stories.
These sensibilities are most evident in depictions of life in India, but also in portraying certain business associates in Montréal. “A Mango Tree for Lauren” deftly illustrates the culture shock of the protagonist’s return to Westmount after a long sojourn in India where she has been researching a milk cooperative in a small poor village. Her former partner invites his wealthy pals to dinner to welcome her back to Montréal.
“Time to eat,” said Terry quickly, ushering them into the dining room. On a gold lined plate sat a huge lump of rare roast beef, floating, as Lauren had imagined, in a pool of blood. Lauren couldn’t stand the sight or the smell of the wounded hunk of beef.”
The stories also provide a subtle introduction to the workings of microeconomics and the success of collectives in the Far East and in Mexico.
In “It is a Far Far Better Thing I Do,” the author takes us into the life of an actor, weaving a careful psychological portrait of a disturbed young man who becomes abusive to his theatre students, yet in another facet of his life is able to develop a deep relationship with members of Montréal’s Arab community.
In a very short tale about a middle-aged Indian woman who leaves her husband in Vancouver to pursue an education in Montréal, Arnopoulos reveals the unfathomable courage it takes to survive changes of language, geography and culture.
“Ballad in A Flat” tells the story of a young pianist who has a fling with her piano teacher and ends up pregnant in what feels like the 1950s. When this piano teacher abandons her, the young woman’s life unravels. This is a stark reminder of what life was like when women had no power over their bodies or babies.
“The Green Fairy” has a woman in a long-term care facility who is despondent until she manages to acquire some absinthe, which she shares with friends who secretly come to visit her. Her tiny, inebriated community supports her as she comes to terms with a very constrained existence.
All these stories are marked by a sense of yearning for identity, a desperate need for community, and a struggle for survival in diverse settings around the world. Arnopoulos effortlessly transports the reader to far-flung locations and back to Canada in this engaging collection of tales.
