SOURCE: Moss, Laura. “‘The Quotidian Is Where It's At.’” Canadian Literature 172 (spring 2002): 194-96.

In the following review of Dressing Up for the Carnival, Moss comments that the best stories in the collection focus on love and marriage and highlight Shields's experimentation with narrative form.

In her introductory remarks at a reading at the Harbourfront Reading Series in Toronto, Carol Shields remarked on her frustration at the critics' tendencies to focus on the “ordinary” in her works. In response to this incessant focus she read “Soup du Jour,” a story from her recent collection Dressing Up for the Carnival. The parodic story begins: “Everyone is coming out these days for the pleasures of ordinary existence. Sunsets. Dandelions. Fencing in the backyard and staying home. ‘The quotidian is where it's at,’ Herb Rhinelander recently wrote in his nationwide syndicated column. ‘People are getting their highs on the roller coaster of...