The Pegnitz Junction
by Mavis Gallant
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A devastating collection exploring the wake of mankind's greatest conflict World War II exerted a psychic toll on Europe that is still evident today. The Pegnitz Junction is Mavis Gallant's look at how Europe handles that collective pain. In the title novella of this sharply written collection, a girl rides the train with her boyfriend and his son in postwar Europe. Onboard, she encounters all manner of personalities, each person burdened by the weight of what he or she has just show more experienced, openly bleeding from the emotional wounds of a terrifying global conflict. A wife must come to terms with her husband's mistakes and find reconciliation in herself as she meets the refugee he had an affair with. A soldier must reintegrate himself into civilian life, no matter how difficult it is. An unlikely friendship between an actress and a police commissioner begins to form. No matter where or when Gallant's stories are set, each one is a small enchantment, anchored by the insights of a master of her craft. show lessTags
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In post-war Europe a woman and her divorced older lover, travel, with his young son, to Paris. “She was at one of those turnings in a young life where no one can lead, no one can help, but where someone for the sake of love might follow.” She is engaged to marry a stuffy theology student. This is the novella that opens the collection and gives it the title.
Mavis Gallant so deftly creates characters that you sense she knows everything there is to know about them, far beyond the story. Many of them are marked by the tragedy of war. “Anyone who had ever known me or loved me had been killed in one period of seven weeks.” The Germans among them are marked by defeat.
Mavis Gallant so deftly creates characters that you sense she knows everything there is to know about them, far beyond the story. Many of them are marked by the tragedy of war. “Anyone who had ever known me or loved me had been killed in one period of seven weeks.” The Germans among them are marked by defeat.
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500 Great Books by Women
507 works; 60 members
Author Information
54+ Works 2,996 Members
Mavis Gallant was born in Montreal, Canada on August 11, 1922. Her parents sent her to live at a French convent when she was 4. When she was 10, her father died from kidney disease. Her mother quickly remarried and moved to New York - leaving her daughter behind. During World War II, Gallant worked in the cutting room at the National Film Board of show more Canada and as a reporter for the Montreal Standard. She eventually became a columnist and feature writer. Two of her short stories appeared in the December, 1944, issue of Preview. She published more than 100 stories in The New Yorker beginning in 1951. During her lifetime, she wrote two novels and several short story collections. Her works include Green Water, Green Sky; A Fairly Good Time; Overhead in a Balloon; Across the Bridge; The Pegnitz Junction; Paris Stories; and The Cost of Living. She received several awards including the Governor-General's Award for Home Truths: Selected Canadian Stories, the Pen Nabokov Award for career achievement, the Matt Cohen Prize in 2000, and the Rea Award for the Short Story in 2002. In 1981, she was made Officer of the Order of Canada for her contribution to literature that year. She died on February 18, 2014 at the age 91. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
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Belongs to Publisher Series
Laurentian Library (69)
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- Members
- 61
- Popularity
- 504,646
- Reviews
- 1
- Rating
- (3.40)
- Languages
- English
- Media
- Paper, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 10
- ASINs
- 2
