Various Antidotes: Stories
by
Joanna Scott
Order:
USA
Can
Picador, 2005 (1994)
Softcover
Read an Excerpt
Reviewed by Mary Ann Smyth
I
n
Various Antidotes
, Joanna Scott, author of seven novels, offers short stories for hours of reading enjoyment. These tales, on diverse subjects, are held together by the quality of the writing. Scott, a consummate storyteller, whisks the reader away to uncharted waters to give us a look at how a few other people lived their lives. Both fictional and real characters people the pages with unusual occupations, whimsy, speculation, and brilliance.
T
here's a a man obsessed with the life he found under a microscope who realizes '
there was hardly a difference between discovering life and creating it.
' Another man - whose life revolved around bees until he betrayed them - reminds us to never be overconfident. We meet an old woman of yesteryear living her days near Coney Island when a dime would buy her a milkshake. She did the math and realized that '
if you spend just two hours a day reading, in fifty years it adds up to an awful eight years and four months of precious time.
' Another resident of this fine collection of stories had the dubious position of caring for research mice. It didn't do to cross her.
W
hichever cleverly woven story fully captures your attention, I'm sure that all of them will remain in your thoughts.
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