SOURCE: "The Shadow of World Events," in The Times Literary Supplement, No. 4611, August 16, 1991, p. 23.

In the following review of The Wild Blue Yonder, Hussein observes that Thomas treats "the seemingly insignificant texture of our lives. "

Described by Margaret Atwood as one of Canada's finest writers, Audrey Thomas was almost unknown in Britain until the appearance of her collection Goodbye Harold, Good Luck. Her early novels are fragmented and experimental, sharing with her short fiction an obsession with language and word-play; her narrators are often writers preoccupied with the meaning of words and the struggle to construct a coherent written text out of (feminine) experience. Her often sensuous prose style, lingering over descriptions of Greece or Africa, suggests a post-feminist Colette, with a contemporary disregard for plot that contributes to her reputation as a difficult writer.

In The Wild Blue Yonder, her new collection of stories and the most...