SOURCE: Frucht, Abby. “Between Rhapsody and Lamentation.” Washington Post (21 May 2000): 6.

In the following review, Frucht asserts that Dressing Up for the Carnival is an important and highly entertaining work.

Dressing Up for the Carnival is Pulitzer Prize-winner Carol Shields's third collection of stories and 12th work of fiction, and anyone who imagines that all this time the remarkable author of Larry's Party and The Stone Diaries has been holding back a few sparks of her peculiar genius is incorrect. It's not sparks but flames she's been tending in secret. These 22 stories emerge from a state of willful, artistic derangement in which the wry despair and vexed compassion of Shield's other works erupt in weird, extravagant light—and not simply for the fun of it but because they need to.

Behind this book lies the recognition that all the good things of this world need fresh encouragement if they...