Cape Breton's Magazine

From The Story So Far..., a New Book by Sheldon Currie Lauchie and Liza and Rory Since the success of Sheldon Currie's recent award-wining novel THE GLACE BAY MIN? ERS' MUSEUM, readers have asked, Who is Sheldon Currie? and Where did he come from? and Is there more? THE STORY SO FAR... is a collection of 11 short stories that charts Currie's road to the sto? ry that became the movie "Margaret's Museum" • and then a little beyond. The collection runs the course from his earliest published story • the bold "He Said (Parenthetically)" • to his most recent prize-winning story, "On Parle Par Coeur." While not a huge body of work, the stories are of a piece, clearly the work of one man, and the reader can see a thread of the comic and bizarre and fundamentally humane running throughout the book. The book displays what critics have written about Sheldon Currie: "Poignant, humorous and relent? lessly unsentimental, (Currie delivers) unforgettable characters and unsettling truths." A serious book of high comedy, THE STORY SO FAR... dares to deal with our terrors and acts of tenderness, from questioning love to wanting love to actually trying to create love. Iff you are just discovering Sheldon's stories, "Lauchie and Liza and Rory" is certainly a good place to start. Lauchie and Liza and Rory I KNEW HE'D TAKE HER IN. I couldn't predict it, mind you, a minute before it happened, but when it did I said as a person often does: I knew it. Once it got to the point, he had to. She wasn't even good looking. I can say that because she looked an awful lot like me. Red hair. Not the kind that glistens and goes good with green sweaters, but the other kind that looks like violin strings made of carrots. It had a part in the middle looked like an axe-cut, and it was pulled back hard and flat and tied at the back in a little ball you'd swear was nailed to the back of her neck. The same way I did it myself. She didn't exactiy have buck teeth, but when her Hps were closed her mouth was a httle mound like she was keeping an orange peeling over her teeth. When she opened her mouth to talk you could see her teeth were round, and big, and almost the same color as her hair. My brothers were identical twins, but as people they were day and night. Liza married Lauchie, the one everybody said was the good one. I could of told her, but I didn't. Even Mother, a smart woman, thought Rory would be a gangster even after he went to work in the pit like everybody else. "He won't last," she said. "He'll get fired, ifhe don't get killed first, doing something foolish." One Friday in the winter he left with a quart of rum and a dozen beer and a smile and never showed up 'til a week from CAPE CARE SERVICES Quality Personal Care (1996)ltd. "People you trust... ...caring for people you love" - AT HOME OR IN HOSPITAL ~ • RN's (and RN >=oot Care Specialists) • CNA's • Blood Work • Screened • Bonded • Insured • Home Care Workers • Reasonable Rates FREE IN-HOME ASSESSMENT 282 GEORGE STREET • SYDNEY • PHONE 562-2444 • FAX 539-7210 /'ServingAii' 'Cape BretonJ Monday, out of a taxi, a cast on one leg from toe to hip, a smile on his face, two crutches, and two poles, and one ski. "You fool," I said when I got him in the house and sat him down on the sofa. "You can't ski." THE STORY SO FAR... by Sheldon Currie, "Whyn't you tell 176 pages, is available everywhere, or from me that 'fore I left?" he Breton Books (see Order Form on page 65) said, and, of course, the big smile. "The beginning of the end," my mother said, with her eyebrows. Lauchie went steady with Liza six months. Then he took her home to meet me and Mother and Rory. Soon as she laid eyes on Rory she knew right then she made a mistake. How she knew I don't know. There wasn't a hair of difference between them. Rory knew it too. He shook hands with her. He never shook another person's hand in his life. He put out his big paw and she put her little red one in it, and he put his other hand on her shoulder; you could see her sink under it a fraction. You could almost see her eyes lock into his. "You'll like living here, Liza," he said. "It's a lot of fun if you look at it the right way." "We'll not be living here," Lauchie said. "Oh," said Rory. "I thought you were, next door, when the MacDonnells move out." "Well, we are," Lauchie said. "The there is not here. This is a duplex. Two different houses; one building." "Some say it's a duplex," Rory said. "I say it's a company house." "Well, what's the difference?" "Difference is simple," Rory said. "In a duplex you can't here people drink water on the other side." Bird Island TOURS 7 DAYS A WEEK July and August: 10 AM & 1:30 PM & 5:30 PM August 28 - September 25: Seal & Eagle Tours 10 AM September 26 - October 15: Fall Colour Tours 10 AM[ Along our rugged coast, see the fa acted in the Bras d'Or Channel 1-800-661-6680 A 2 1/2 HOUR CRUISE FROM MOUNTAIN VIEW BY THE SEA| Cabins and Camping 4 miles off Trans-Canada Hwy. (Route 105) BIG BRAS D'OR • (902) 674-2384