SOURCE: Krauss, Jennifer. “Family Secrets.” New Republic 210, no. 13 (28 March 1994): 43-5.

In the following review, Krauss discusses the family tensions that motivate the characters and inform the style and structure of Across the Bridge.

Family is an embattled country surrounded by moats in Mavis Gallant's precarious world. The characters in her stories who escape its confines—castoffs or deserters committing acts of treason—are wary adventurers, uncertain if they are being rescued or taken prisoner. When her younger sister gets married and prepares to embark on a new life in “The Chosen Husband,” one of four linked stories in the latest collection, [Across the Bridge,] Berthe Carette looks on the wedding party as if she were composing a photograph, and in the process captures her creator's worldview: “It was an important picture, like a precise instrument of measurement: so much duty, so much love, so much reckless safety. …”

That...