Dressing Up for the Carnival

Carol Shields has a knack for turning the ordinary into the extraordinary and nowhere more than in this luminous collection which distills all her elegance, wisdom, and humor into short stories that read more like concise novels. Throughout these stories runs Shields' preoccupation with identity—as in the title story—a compacted day in the life of the world—in which a procession of characters try on new selves. Yet these stories and their quiet epiphanies reflect all the contrasts of human existence... from the bittersweet sexuality of "Eros" to the wicked skewering of pompous academic conversation in "The Next Best Kiss." Playful, graceful, acute yet tender, Dressing Up for the Carnival is Carol Shields at her most accomplished and appealing.