SOURCE: "Ordinary People," in Books in Canada, Vol. 11, No. 9, November, 1982, pp. 18-19.

In the following review, Horvath argues that A Fairly Conventional Woman fails to live up to the high standards Shields established in her earlier novels.

Carol Shields began her writing career as a poet, and her first three novels reflect a poetic view, a lyrical perspective. Two of them, Small Ceremonies and Happenstance, were especially notable for their imagery and for Shields's skillful handling of the musings of the main characters. In them Shields portrayed suburban life in great detail, but her descriptions, even of the prosaic, were almost always fresh and insightful. And because of their curiosity and imagination, her characters were appealing. Most important, she wrote with a delicate touch, so lightly that the reader discovered much more about the characters than the narrators apparently intended to reveal. Unfortunately A Fairly Conventional Woman is...