Unlucky Lucky Days

Brief, animist epiphanies—most shorter than a page—comprise Grandbois's folkloric debut. The frog of “Greener Pastures” dreams of becoming an architect like his father, and shapes his dung hills into replicas of churches. The blind cat in “The Teacher” decides on a career change, aided by an equally blind mouse. The growth on Aunt Mary's neck (“The Growth”) appeared “as random as the decay of an isotope in an old growth forest when no one is there to hear.” Absurdist and surreal, witty and ironical, Grandbois's observations make for pleasant grotesques: impressionistic idées fixes “like the heads of soldiers... large enough to block passages against intruders.” (June)