SOURCE: Rubin, Merle. “New Yorker Writer's Miniature Novels.” Christian Science Monitor (15 January 1997): 15.

In the following review, Rubin comments on the narrative strategies of The Collected Stories of Mavis Gallant, observing the effect of the disinterested tone common to them.

The short stories of Mavis Gallant might well be said to epitomize the spirit of The New Yorker at midcentury, although in fact her contributions to that magazine have continued on into the century's last decade.

Born in Montreal in 1922, Gallant began writing for The New Yorker in 1950. The payment she received for her first story enabled her to go to Paris, where she has spent most of her time ever since. All but one of the 53 stories she has selected for this collection of her work [The Collected Stories of Mavis Gallant] first appeared in The New Yorker.

Like much of the writing that was featured in The...