Birthday Book Recs 33/50 : Small Ceremonies by Carol Shields
Small Ceremonies by Carol Shields
Birthday Book Recs: 35/50
Small Ceremonies by Carol Shields
I adore Small Ceremonies, debut novel by the late Carol Shields. A more effusive way of putting it: This is my other favorite book. (The other is Peace Like a River by Leif Enger, which I posted about Jan 14.) Is that not a dramatic enough way of proclaiming something? I figure that’s ok because I’m just following the example of Shields’ measured prose.
My mom gave me Shields’ Pulitzer-winning novel The Stone Diaries sometime while I was in college, and after finishing that one, I just knew I had to find out more about this author. Small Ceremonies was published in 1976, but despite its age (that would be, uh, 50), this novel about biographer Judith Gill, her husband and children, and the ways that Judith wonders how and why her life intersects with colleagues, extended family, and friends feels as fresh as ever. This is because Shields rarely relies on anachronistic details; instead, she mines her characters’ relationships for wise observations that are the same sort of (maybe wise) observations we’d make today. The same 7-day rhythm existed 50 years ago, and it will exist 50 years from now. Life is complicated and interesting enough — no need to try to recreate when it requires curiosity to decipher mysteries that already exist. (That said, I love the copy-editing marks in the background of this particular cover art. Just as biographer Judith tries to figure out the best way to share about her subjects, isn’t it human nature to want to do so with ourselves? Btw, this was my favorite little thematic nugget in everyone’s new favorite novel, The Correspondent! The ways that Sybil continued to edit, finesse, and polish her correspondence…)
PS: Someone messaged me a few months ago asking which Carol Shields books I’d recommend for a newbie. I’m pretty sure I replied Small Ceremonies, The Stone Diaries, or The Republic of Love. But if you’d like to try out an author that feels, to me, like a slightly less sentimental Elizabeth Strout, I really don’t think you could go wrong with any except for maybe her second, The Box Garden. (I like it, but not as much as literally everything else she wrote.)
You can find all my 50th Birthday Book Recommendations HERE.
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