In the preface to her unflinching short story collection Season of Fury and Wonder, Sharon Butala states with bald assurance, “These stories are about old women.” Her intention in this volume is to grant a voice to women who have reached an advanced age and describe their current circumstances: how they are living in the here and now, more often than not alone, marginalized and with death staring them in the face. But she acknowledges this can’t be done without bringing the past into the discussion. So, what we have here then, is a collection of ten stories in which elderly women are contemplating their present in light of past events, decisions, and behaviours that have shaped their lives and helped bring them to where they are. Butala acknowledges as well that each of her stories is a tribute or response to an earlier classic story. The first piece in the collection, “What Else We Talk About When We Talk About Love,” inspired by the famous Raymond Carver story, treats the mysterious nature of love: a woman who has always been emotionally reserved and unaffectionate visits her sister and brother-in-law, both of whom are dying of cancer, and experiences a shocking and unexpected epiphany when she finds herself flooded with love for them. In “Grace’s Garden,” inspired by Allen Sillitoe’s “The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner,” widowed Grace struggles each day to retain her dignity and independence, resisting pressure from her children to give up the house and move into a care facility despite evidence of advancing dementia. And in “Downsizing” (inspired by John Cheever’s “The Swimmer”), widowed Lucinda, terrified of spending her twilight years alone, has scoured her high-school and college yearbooks and compiled a list of candidates who might be willing to provide the affection and male companionship she craves. Heading out to meet them, however, she encounters the flaws in her strategy: some on her list are dead, others are boring, and some never liked her and don’t mind saying so. Butala’s writing is incisive and unsentimental, often pulsing with cheeky humour. Her elderly characters have reached a stage of life where time is of the essence, a reckoning is approaching, and the vices of youth—vanity, denial of unflattering truths, wasteful extravagance, self-pity—serve little purpose. Sharon Butala writes barbed, difficult stories. Her characters, though often frail and sometimes losing their grip if not their edge, are courageous and resilient as they confront without regret the indignities of old age. Sharon Butala’s triumphant return to the short story grants an urgent and honest voice to an underrepresented segment of humanity and makes a compelling argument that we ignore these voices at our peril. ( )

Crone Lit Shorts
Review of the Coteau Books paperback edition (2019)

I don't know if the "Crone Lit" name for this sub-genre will catch on, as it will require a major shift away from the negative connotations that most will have with the word "crone." The publisher's own synopsis doesn't shy away from it though: "Crone lit stories that are examples of the wisdom and insights of older women and at the same time tributes to the classic literature that inspired them," for perhaps that very reason. Still, there were some early signs that a gradual reclamation and rebranding of the word is on its way in titles such as The Crone: Woman of Age, Wisdom, and Power (1988) and Crones Don't Whine: Concentrated Wisdom for Juicy Women (2003).

Sharon Butala paints ten wonderful portraits of senior women in this collection of short stories in which each is also inspired by an earlier classic that was influential on the author in the past. The influence on the story can be very small such as an elephant figurine appearing in the story inspired by Ernest Hemingway's Hills Like White Elephants (1927). You can also interpret it as a sequel as if the woman in Hemingway's story had moved far off to Canada and keeps the figurine as a mnemonic. In any case, knowing the original inspiration isn't key to appreciating each portrait that Butala constructs. It is the raw human angst, yearning and joy that is captured which is the real draw.

I don't know what the extent of the audience is for a book such as this as many are fearful of aging and the infirmities and struggles that it brings with it. Butala looks at it right in the face and embraces it and makes you feel it as well. ( )