The ten stories in Patricia Robertson’s first collection of short fiction offer a somber, shadowed world of characters who strive for other, more magical destinations. The book’s mood and images are stark and carefully controlled. And while Robertson roots each tale very firmly in the here and now, a few of her characters actually find their way into the imaginary....City of Orphans is a thoughtful, well-written collection.
A young Pole in a Canadian internment camp during World War I becomes obsessed with a female visitor. A contemporary young woman’s baby develops a mysterious illness while her own life is invaded by dreams of a homesick Norwegian princess from the 14th century. The father of a British child disappears on the Canadian frontier in the early 1950s.
Luminous, sensual, haunting, City of Orphans weaves fantasy and reality together into stories of dreamlike intensity and hypnotic visual power.