Temerity & Gall

(Paperback)

Publishing Details

Classifications

Physical Properties

Description

• Metcalfs short story collections have received an NYTBR Notable Book of the Year, starred reviews and raves in Kirkus and Publishers Weekly. Museum at the End of the World, his latest collection, won the Ottawa Book Award, and the recent UK publication of his selected stories garnered a rave review in the Irish Times and Herald Scotland.
• Blurbs from Alice Munro and other notables.
• Released as a signed limited edition of 500 copies.
• Black and white photographs throughout.

Reviews

Praise forTemerity & Gall

"Incandescent [...] steeped in acid wit."
Literary Review of Canada

"[Metcalf's] exacting eye and his ongoing willingness to call out what he considers substandard, inert, or deadening in our literary culture has earned him opprobrium ... One need not agree with everything [he] says to find much to gnaw on in his analyses of the various ways literary technique and style ... are too often downgraded or outright ignored. ... While its amusing to wrestle with the temerity and gall of Metcalfs settled esthetic standards ... his achievement in translating this approach into practice as mentor and guiding light is invaluable and we are all in his debt."
Steven W. Beattie, Toronto Star

"[Metcalf] deliver[s] a layered and textured narrative highlighting a wide range of writing and writers, one that immerses the reader into the soul of what writing, and thus literature, is supposed to be. And in this, he has succeeded."
Ottawa Review of Books

"Temerity & Gall is obviously a must-have for book lovers but, since it presents Metcalfs energetic meandering from a re-union of the Montreal Story Tellers through colourful observations and unabashed opinions, it can be enjoyed by anyone seeking stimulation of the mind."
Winnipeg Free Press

Praise for John Metcalf

John Metcalf has written some of the very best stories ever published in this country.
Alice Munro

[Metcalfs] talent is generous, hectoring, huge, and remarkable.
Washington Post

In the past few decades, Canada has won a reputation as a prolific producer of high-quality short stories. Alice Munro, Mavis Gallant and John Metcalf are among those who have proven themselves masters of the difficult form.
Macleans

Hilarious, touching and delightful brilliant concision and understated humor.
Los Angeles Times

A master stylist confidently at work in his favoured form.
Oxford Companion to Canadian Literature: Second Edition

Masterful ... Harsh reality, hope, and caricature mingle in this tour de force. As Metcalf says in his previous book, "Writing is very hard work but at the same time it is delightful play." An exceptional collection.
Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

Author Bio

John Metcalf has been one of the leading editors in Canada for more than five decades, editing more than two hundred books over this time, including eighteen volumes of the Best Canadian Stories anthology. He is also the author of more than a dozen works of fiction and nonfiction, including Finding Again the World: Selected Stories, Vital Signs: Collected Novellas, An Aesthetic Underground: A Literary Memoir, and The Museum at the End of the World. Senior Fiction Editor at Biblioasis, he lives in Ottawa with his wife, Myrna.