Not your high school short stories! A few are "normal" but others turn the genre on its head. I like the final one, and the Santa story best. Others made me wonder what was going on. ( )

My lord, can she write! Lisa Moore that is. She grips me by the scruff of my neck and heaves me about. Such is the power of her writing. That said, I don't like her stories all that much. There is more to reading than liking something. And she has shown that to me clearly, and earned my respect for her craft, her gift. Brilliance, in a word. Read it. ( )

Lisa Moore’s short fiction collection, Something for Everyone, is nothing less than a virtuoso performance, a grouping of incisive modern-day tales that propels the reader through a splintered, emotionally simmering, non-linear reality that is always surprising and often shocking. Moore plays with structure, chronology and perspective in ways that few writers dare (at the moment, only George Saunders comes to mind), darting back and forth in time, piling abrupt transitions on conversational non-sequiturs on slippery shifts in construction. Is she daring her reader to follow along, or give up, at their peril? But anyone who does give up is missing out on what a truly gifted and original storyteller working at peak form has to offer. Moore’s stories are not only structurally ground-breaking but geographically and socially adventurous as well, observing few if any boundaries. Her characters include professionals, mothers and fathers, teens, criminals and sex workers; her chief setting is Newfoundland, but several stories range farther afield. The opener, “A Beautiful Flare” explores the working dynamic among employees of a shoe store with a sales award on the line. “The Fjord of Eternity” follows Trisha’s search for an insurance-claim fraudster. The tragic backdrop of “The Viper’s Revenge” is the Pulse nightclub massacre: a young librarian, attending a conference in Orlando, indulges in an impulsive sexual encounter, but without explanation the narrative swivels, and for much of the story we’re reading about the caretaker of the hotel where the librarian is staying, and his family. And “Skywalk,” which takes place in St. John’s in the midst of a rash of rapes, tells of university student Chelsea’s quest for a suitable apartment, ranging across her entire life in the process. Moore’s prose is razor-sharp, as are her observations regarding human desire and motivation. There is nothing sentimental in these pages. These are characters who have grit in their shoes, go hungry at night and sometimes find themselves in danger through no fault of their own. Lisa Moore is no ordinary writer: her approach to storytelling is radical and startling, but never gimmicky. Undeniably, Something for Everyone makes demands of the reader, with its loosely plotted stories that veer in unexpected directions without warning. But the challenge the book presents is worth accepting. Its rewards are too numerous to count. ( )

Whether there is something for everyone in the nine stories and one novella contained in this collection is an open question. There is certainly something here, and I’ll choose to hope that everyone takes up the opportunity to partake. For those in doubt, the very first story, “A Beautiful Flare,” ought to be enough to convince. Three employees in a shoe emporium in a mall. Each one is taken with, indeed blindingly infatuated with, another of the three. An overriding condition — a sales competition amongst the brand’s employees across the country — adds heat to an already steamy environment. Moore cuts between each of the principal characters’ points of view and back story, so that images pile on top of one another, not unlike the stacked boxes of shoes in the tiny storeroom that tumble down on two of the three in flagrante while the third enters and witnesses. Well!

The density of Moore’s writing is what strikes you, almost suffocates you. Her stories are so rich that you could imagine unpacking almost any one of them into novel length. But when she does expand her form, as in the novella, “Skywalk,” the writing is just as dense. With a lesser writer it would be too much, but with Moore you just revel in her skill. “Skywalk,” is a good example of how she can create an overriding mood, in this case a palpable misogyny, that serves as backdrop to the foreground action.

Her subjects are varied but often edge toward the grittier components of life. And Moore does gritty well, whether from a female perspective or from that of a man. Her characters tend to be driven, compulsively reaching toward something even if they let it go before attaining it, as in ,”The Fjord of Eternity.” But just as often there are a chorus of characters who may or may not interact directly, but whose various storylines form a contrapuntal fugue as they are woven together. An excellent example is, “The Viper’s Revenge.”

I enjoyed each of the stories here and gained renewed admiration for Moore’s skill. She continues to be one of the brightest lights in Canadian literature.

Recommended. ( )