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Carol Malyon writes of women's lives, of their relationships with lovers, mothers, children, other women. She explores the relationships between memory and truth. Lovers & Other Strangersconsists of small stories, snapshots of women's lives in specific times and situations. The setting and characters vary but the theme remains fixed: that there is a fundamental and irreconcilable discord between men and women, in their view of the world, their modes of communication, the way they view themselves, the way they view others.Carol Malyon's stories are nearly all unconventionally brief and intense in feeling. They are essentially a poet's stories but they most definitely are not that revolting hybrid 'prose-poetry'. This writing is hard, direct, forceful. She is among those writers who are forcing us to reconsider the nature and form of the short story in Canada.The stories are often prickly. They illuminate, but illuminate darkly. Malyon gazes down into the emotional chasm which seems to seperate men and women, parents and children, and the images she brings to the surface are not quite like anything you've read before ... though you recognize them and know they're true. Perhaps the only Canadian stories at all comparable are those of Carol Shields in Various Miraclesand The Orange Fish.