The Cost of Living: Early and Uncollected Stories by Mavis Gallant

The Cost of Living: Early and Uncollected Stories Reviews

• 
  Tony

  This is the great Canadian short story writer who did not stay in Canada, literally or, well, literally. Let's not compare her to or with Alice Munro. Which is not to say Gallant is lesser. It's just that there is more of an edge to her work often indistinguishable from the stories of Elizabeth Taylor or Joy Williams. What happiness exists in these dissonant pieces is in a character's acceptance of disjointedness.
  
  As might be expected from an expatriate, the stories here are populated by geographical wanderers and the psychologically unmoored. The narrator of the title story, The Cost of Living, tells us:
  
  It happened that at the late age of twenty-seven I had run away from home. High time, you might say; but rebels can't always be choosers. At first I gave lessons so as to get by, and then I did it for a living, which is not the same thing.
  
  The story, though, is about her sister who follows only when it is safe to do so, when the parents have died, and the significant estate is in order. She keeps an account book which is more like a diary, balancing those costs which are necessary with those that are unnecessary. As a friendship and an inchoate love prove to be not what she imagined, purchases move from one side of the ledger to the other.
  
  Perhaps because I read it first, out of order like I do, Thieves and Rascals was my favorite. Subtle, minimalist maybe, a man needs to talk to his wife about their daughter, about why she is being expelled from a select school. The wife's measured response is wonderfully crafted. Thieves and rascals, that is what men are. Except me, says the husband. Except me. Except me. Except me.
  
  If you read this you will meet characters like this teenage girl in One Morning in May:
  
  "I was only five when he went away, so I don't remember much. He was killed later, when I was seven. It was right before my birthday, so I couldn't have a party." She presented, like griefs of equal value.
  
  The Rejection is a story of a father talking to his six and one-half year-old daughter. Gallant tells us that. The only thing I'm sure of is that it is not a story of a father talking to his six and one-half year-old daughter.
  
  Rose is another story which did not bother to leave me with a plot. Yet, long after I forget the other storylines, I will remember the cadence, a kind of haiku, or maybe a jazz poem. Like this:
  
  Childhood recollection is often hallucination; who is to blame?
  
  and...
  
  Christmas is a special season for us. We are atheists.
  
  and...
  
  The overshoes are the first excitement; who is there?
  
  The Burgundy Weekend was the longest, and last in the collection. I read it last, so I'm not completely disorderly. Gallant uses her literary talents of misdirection, showing not telling; sleight of hand. What is here? Memory. Class. Countries. The War. Human relationships, circling like planets just out of reach.
  
  The running girl did not see anything, certainly not Lucie. She made for Jérôme; stopped; remembered her manners. It was Lucie who received her French coldness, her French handshake (a new-born white mouse was what it felt like).
  
  and....
  
  Every marriage is different, she said, and ours is like this. It can't be helped. I don't know of any that can be called better--only different.
  
  and...
  
  Late in the night she woke. He was smoking, walking around the room. She thought of the white organdy curtains and of the lighter, but she was not awake enough to speak, only to hear her own mind saying, No, no, he never does the worst thing.
  
  I'll have some more Gallant, please.
• 
  Sketchbook

  What's the difference between Mavis and Maeve? Ok, one is Gallant, the other is Brennan. Both are forgotten today, both fine writers. Both getting some resurrection. Brennan did a tragic burnout, Gallant held it together until her death at age 91, (20014), and left more than 100 stories. Gallant, especially, honored "the New Yorker-style" of story: atmosphere, character, detail and nothing happens. She grazes current events (of her day) and noodges with a moral elbow. Maeve Brennan, with caustic humor, is not adverse to "plot" and emphasizes the social contract. Read The Rose Garden collection. I prefer Maeve, but Mavis is damn good too.
• 
  Laurie

  Mavis Gallant is, I believe, a most under appreciated writer. Her bread and butter is the short-story from which she made a several decades long career. These aren't feel good pieces, nor are they driven by plot or character development. Rather, each story is a vivid description of a point in time, the mood and psyche of the characters and their disconnection from each other. Disconnection, parental neglect, sham marriages, poverty these are the conditions lived by Ms. Gallant's characters yet none of them are despairing; all are in various stages of carrying on.
  
  What I enjoy so much about Gallant's writing are the splendid sentences she writes to describe less than splendid people. Of the older sister in the title story she writes "She was as careful in her human judgements as she was in her accounts. Unable to squander, she wondered where to deposit her treasure of pity, affection and love." Of a failed actor from a background of degradation and deep poverty who masquerades as an English gentleman we learn "Like many spiteful, snobbish, fussy men, or a certain type of murder, Wishart chose his friends from among among middle-age, solitary women...He lived on his hostesses without shame."
  
  It almost seems wasteful to have such precise, glittering writing lavished on such dependent, neurotic, defended and disconnected people; but that is our reward for accompanying her characters on their dates with disappointment and defeat.
  
  
• 
  JacquiWine

  This is my first experience of the Canadian writer, Mavis Gallant, but hopefully not my last. In short, these stories are excellent. The very best of them feel like novels in miniature; the kind of tales where everything is compressed, only for the narratives to expand in the reader’s mind on further reflection.
  
  The Cost of Living comprises twenty stories from 1951 to 1971 – rather helpfully, the pieces are dated and arranged in chronological order.
  
  Several of Gallant’s protagonists – typically women – seem lost; cast adrift and unmoored in the vast sea of uncertainty that is life. Here we have stories of terrible mothers and self-absorbed fathers, of isolated wives and bewildered husbands, of smart, self-reliant children who must learn to take care of themselves.
  
  The collection opens with Madeleine’s Birthday, Gallant’s first story, published in The New Yorker in 1951. Seventeen-year-old Madeleine is self-sufficient and strong-minded, traits she has had to develop in response to her rather thoughtless mother – now living in Europe following her divorce from Madeleine’s father.
  
  At her mother’s request, Madeleine is spending the summer at a country house in Connecticut, a property owned by Anna Tracy, a longstanding friend of the family. However, Anna simply cannot understand why Madeleine doesn’t seem particularly pleased to be there, especially as Anna views her Connecticut summers ‘as a kind of therapy to be shared with the world’. In truth, Madeline would much rather be on her own in her mother’s vacant New York apartment, amusing herself with trips to the movies and the like. To complicate matters further, the Tracys are also housing another guest for the summer – a German boy named Paul, whom Anna hopes will be a friend for Madeleine. Madeleine, however, resents having to share a bathroom with Paul, viewing him as yet another imposition on her freedom…
  
  “I cannot cope with it here,” Madeleine had written to her father shortly after she arrived. “One at a time would be all right but not all the Tracys and this German.” “Cope” was a word Madeline had learned from her mother, who had divorced Madeleine‘s father because she could not cope with him, and then had fled to Europe because she could not cope with the idea of his remarriage. “Can you take Madeleine for the summer? she had written to Anna Tracy, who was a girlhood friend. “You are so much better able to cope.” (p. 7)
  
  Things come to a head on the morning of Madeleine’s birthday, particularly when Anna tries to chivvy her along with patronising cheer and gaiety. In effect, Anna is treating Madeleine like a child – no different to her daughter Allie, who is six.
  
  This is an excellent, nuanced story, one that taps into the heartache of adolescence, the emptiness of false happiness and domesticity, and ultimately, a sense of isolation and abandonment.
  
  To read the rest of my review, please visit:
  
  
  https://jacquiwine.wordpress.com/2020...
• 
  Elaine

  I can't believe I've never read her before. Chilly and delicious.
• 
  Michalle Gould

  Even the short stories are like little novels, complicated and 'weird' in the best way, like you will have to read them again and again but probably never understand them entirely.
• 
  Emily

  Luminous, uncomfortable, and tough-minded: there's usually no center of sympathy. Characters start out seeming normal and subtly establish their insanity bona-fides. I expect some of these will stay with me, especially some of the unforgivable mothers.
• 
  Lisa

  I decided to read the collection representing her early career, spanning 1957-71, as my introduction to Gallant's work. These 20 short stories are less about plot and more about intelligence, language, and milieu. Each is about expats, despondency, and bad relationships (of all kinds, not just romantic). The depression of dependency is pervasive as I learned more of the social norms of the time period. I already was grateful for having been born at a time not to have been heavily influenced by the world wars and at a time that I could take advantage of (if still not equitable) the women's liberation movement but her book made me even more appreciative of the timing of my birth. Women had it much worse in those dead marriages she depicted, fostering dependence on men even when the women had family money. The author's biographical information heavily influenced the themes in these stories. Her father died and her mother remarried when she was 10, moved from Quebec to NYC, and left her with a guardian. She was quoted as saying her mother should never have become a mother. That sums up many of the plots.
• 
  changeableLandscape

  I often do not like short stories, but Gallant is a stunningly good author, and this collection is particularly satisfying because it spans twenty years of her long career (she died only 2 years ago, in 2014) from her very first published story ("Madeline's Birthday", 1951) to a novella written after the publication of her second novel ("The Burgundy Weekend", 1970-71). The stories are arranged in chronological order, and it is easy to see how she grew as an author. Her earliest works in this collection are well-crafted but thin, very clear views but without much depth, and then over time the stories grow denser and she does more with the language and eventually begins to experiment with form. There were a number of stories I loved -- "Travelers Must Be Content," "Acceptance of Their Ways," "Night and Day" -- but I think my favourite is "Thieves and Rascals" from 1956, which is a cry of grief and rage made all the more powerful by the fact that the viewpoint character is unable to hear or understand it.
  
  I am going to read much more Gallant; I think I will start with her earliest collection & go from there.
• 
  Rebecca

  Mavis Gallant's short story collection The Cost of Living allows readers a glimpse at the evolution of a writer over twenty years. These stories are intricately pretty on the surface, hinting at murky depths below. Each story in the collection provides plenty of material for study and contemplation. In Thieves and Rascals from the July 1956 issue of Esquire, Gallant endows a woman with a powerful monologue on the physical, mental, and emotional exhaustion of dealing with inappropriate men, which could have been cut and pasted from a recent think piece on #MeToo. The power of Gallant's craft is indisputable throughout this collection.
• 
  Robert

  Every story in here is painstakingly beautiful, and a wonderful example of post-WWII writing style. Reminds me of Salinger in the way Gallant's characters observe the world around them, particularly when surrounded by the bourgeoisie. Many say Gallant is underrated; while it sounds like she experienced a fair deal of success while alive, I am surprised her name doesn't fall from others' tongues too quickly or often.
  
  "Going Ashore" is a story I find myself returning to again and again. A perfect point of entry for this collection.
• 
  Dylan

  "Madeline's Birthday" and "The Cost of Living" (which is the actual title of this collection, not "Going Ashore") are stupendous when read alone. Reading them to someone else, translates less. But in any case, this collection has definitely made me want read more of Ms. Gallant. She is a strange an beautiful bird from what I can tell so far.
• 
  Raquel

  This book was my introduction to Mavis Gallant. I can't believe I've never read her before. Her stories are masterful. These were her early collected stories, and a couple of the more experimental ones I wasn't as into, but my goodness. Even in her youth, she was already wise beyond her years and more talented then than I could ever hope to be. I am looking forward to reading more of her work.
• 
  Chloe

  Writing by a woman for women and for men who want to know what it’s like to think like a woman. Explaining it would rather obviate the point of the book, other than to say that the collection of stories dives into a multitude of female perspectives so entirely you wonder why we have spent so long thinking, judging and acting from a male, linear viewpoint.
• 
  Sophy H

  Well, I just couldn't get into this collection of short stories.
  
  Nothing was jumping out at me.
  
  They all felt disjointed and a little bit vacuous in nature.
  
  I'm not feeling the love for Mavis Gallant.
  
  Never mind.
• 
  Anca

  Gosh! Even when I'm thinking "this isn't Mavis Gallant's *best* story," it's a damn fine, excellent story.
• 
  Bettie

  RIP
• 
  Ursula

  I decided to get this book because of the title, expecting a grim, sarcastic take on life or some criticism of capitalism. Well, after a little bit of digging and googling about this book… I was wrong. Reading the introduction by
  
  This is, apparently, a collection of stories about misplaced people –mostly women–and how they navigate their lives in new places, roles, and others. Most of the men here are useless and although seemingly holding a lot of power in society (a marshall, general, colonel, rich lawyer, or just broke activist that holds power but is completely powerless in helping their spouses to lessen their burdens or just simply ignoring them).
  
  Loss, misplacement, and alienation seem to be repeated themes, with a little touch of classism and racism. And in addressing these delicate issues, Gallant proved her amazing penmanship. Her narratives are so subtle yet powerful, a true embodiment of “show don’t tell.” For example, this one part from a story about a French noblewoman hosting an American family in her house:
  
  

  “She disliked foreigners; she had told the Marshall children so. But they, unfortunately, did not consider themselves foreign, and had pictured instead dark men with curling beards.”

  
  
  Or the self-importance and pretentiousness of an American lady towards her black house servant”
  
  

  “She will keep on working,” Nora said. “I’ve told her to leave that hard work for the char, but she insists. I suppose it’s her way of showing gratitude, because we’ve treated her like a human being instead of a slave. Don’t you agree?”
  
  “I suppose so.”
  
  “I’m so tired,” Nora said. She lay back in her chair with her eyes closed, the picture of total exhaustion. She had broken one of her nails clean across, that morning, helping Bernadette with something Bernadette might easily have done alone.

  
  
  Gallant is a magnificent writer, that’s all I can say. Although, unfortunately, the stories get pretty boring as we’re nearing the last page, it’s still a great read. For writers who seek to improve their writing, this, trust me, is a great book to have on your shelf and revisit from time to time.
• 
  Frank

  With writers who specialize in the short story and publish numerous collections over the years, eventually there’s bound to be some overlap between collections, as they reprise a number of cherished stories from earlier collections in later anthology collections and ‘selected tales’ volumes. In the case of Mavis Gallant’s late collections The Cost of Living (published in Britain and America) and
  Going Ashore (published in Canada), which just like her earlier collection In Transit contain stories from the 50s and 60s (plus one novella-length story from 1970/71, ‘The Burgundy Weekend’), it’s not a case of overlap so much as near-identity. Basically, The Cost of Living is a slimmed down version of its Canadian counterpart Going Ashore, with one little cherry added that’s missing in the fatter volume.
  
  Going Ashore cointains 31 stories; The Cost of Living contains 19 of those same stories, plus one other story (‘Rose’) that was never collected in book form elsewhere. What it leaves out, are two early (admittedly rather good) stories and nine pieces that aren’t really short stories proper, but short satirical skits, the humour of which mainly eludes me. It is either too private, too abstruse or too topical, in any case they don’t appeal to my tastes; some readers may get more out of them than I do, but on the whole I’d suspect these short pieces are bound to appeal to a far smaller audience than the best of her real stories. So in my opinion, leaving them out wasn’t a bad idea on the part of the editors of The Cost of Living, which also boasts a passionate and interesting introduction by Jhumpa Lahiri. The added story ‘Rose’ is another nice sample from the body of (it seems to me) autobiographical stories in Gallant’s work, and nearly all the remaining stories are good to terrific, the highlights for me being ‘Going Ashore’, ‘Wing’s Chips’, ‘The Legacy’, ‘The Cost of Living’, ‘Madeline’s Birthday’ and ‘Thieves and Rascals’.
• 
  J

  Well-written stories. Full of photographic details. Characters are opened, analyzed to death, reminding me of Henry James' stories, e.g. Aspern papers. Much is explicitly said, and this at times kills the mystery. Could be that Gallant couldn't write a decent play: she would not have a way to load every word and action with colorful, twisting description. I couldn't connect with persons and places in these stories.
• 
  Alik

  #1
  “Do you know what I hate more than anything?” Madeline said to Paul on the morning of her birthday. “I hate older men who look at girls and insult them.” It was an unusually chatty remark for Madeline, but Paul was not listening.
  
  #15
  The coffeepot spitting water brought Jim to the kitchen. He got to the stove before Veronica knew what he was doing there. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I was thinking about shoes.”
• 
  LiB

  Beautifully written with quotable phrases, but it is the same story over and over again. Narcissistic people in depressing marriages neglecting their kids; dust, boredom and shabbiness; everywhere is disappointing and nobody, not even children, actually enjoys anything, they just pretend to for show.
• 
  Mar

  It took me a while to get to and through this collection. I believe Gallant is a great writer and her stories are decent, but I'm not sure they work well for 21st Century readers who may not have the patience for her detail or the desire to figure out what is going on beyond what is specifically stated.
• 
  Justin Echols

  Eh mate, pretty good collection.
  Reminded me of "Nine Stories" by Salinger. Men and women don't know how to communicate, 1950s Paris was kinda shit, and in the end you're all on your own against the world.
  
  Oh and I like her description of people's kitchens.
• 
  Marie

  Some five-star stories in here, but I'm giving four stars because they're buttressed by weaker work. If nothing else, read "The Cost of Living," "Bernadette," "Travelers Must Be Content," "Going Ashore," and "Burgundy Weekend" -- all completely incredible stories.
• 
  Spiros

  Razor-sharp prose, limning the lives of people whom one would very much like not to know in real life, but people who are fully human, withal.