So if feels like I've overdosed on Carol Shields a little bit now, perhaps because Unless, though far more accomplished, felt very much like Duet, which I read only a few weeks ago. Again the central character is a female writer (who seem to pop up in EVERYTHING I read at the moment - what is my subsconscious trying to tell me?) who is a mother to three daughters, the eldest of whom has decided to 'drop out' of society and beg on a street corner. She is always on the same corner, and although the other members of her family try to engage with her, she never acknowledges them.The whole story is about how her mother tries to continue to function, not having lost her daughter through death but somehow losing her more completely - through an inability to touch her or to understand what could have lead her to this point. Shields' characteristic 'voice' is as strong as ever, spare and elegant, but I never really got a true sense of the ravaging pain this mother felt - just a kind of hollow reflection of what it might be. There were glimpses of it, through letters to other writers and public figures, filled with impotent anger covered by a veneer of polite debate or admonishment. In this way it was a little disappointing - I wanted a much more visceral sense of how this experience marked her.
I think I'm just a bit over this style of writing – need something quite different. Of course, the next book in the pile is Blinding Light by Paul Theroux... with a male writer as the central character. That would be right.
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