Mavis Gallant

A writer’s writer’s writer

This week on the ABR Podcast, Patrick Flanery reviews The Uncollected Stories of Mavis Gallant, edited by Garth Risk Hallberg. Gallant’s stories mostly appeared in The New Yorker from the 1950s to the 1990s. Indeed, she was one of its most frequent contributors, with the likes of John Cheever and John Updike. Nonetheless, her work has been under-appreciated – until now. Patrick Flanery writes that this collection seeks ‘to ensure that every serious reader knows precisely why one might wish to spend time in Gallant’s idiosyncratic and determinedly realist house of fiction.’ Flanery is the author of four novels, including Absolution, which was shortlisted for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary award. He is Chair of Creative Writing at the University of Adelaide. Here her is with ‘A writer’s writer’s writer: Mavis Gallants neglected oeuvre’, which appears in the May issue of ABR.

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The Uncollected Stories of Mavis Gallant by Mavis Gallant and edited by Garth Risk Hallberg

by Patrick Flanery •

May 2025, no. 475

Patrick Flanery reviews ‘The Uncollected Stories of Mavis Gallant’ by Mavis Gallant and edited by Garth Risk Hallberg

It always surprises me when I encounter someone so well read that they seem to have every obscure literary reference to hand and yet the late Canadian writer Mavis Gallant has managed entirely to escape not just their attention but their knowledge. ‘Who?’ they will ask. ‘How do you spell that?’ Offer them titles of collections and stories and their perplexity only deepens. The Uncollected Stories of Mavis Gallant, edited by American novelist Garth Risk Hallberg and published by New York Review Books, both tries to explain that underappreciation and to ensure that every serious reader knows precisely why one might wish to spend time in Gallant’s idiosyncratic and determinedly realist house of fiction.

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