Dressing Up for the Carnival

Carol Shields had a knack for turning the ordinary into the extraordinary and nowhere more than in this luminous collection of short stories. Throughout these stories runs Shields' preoccupation with identity—as in the title story, about a compacted day in the life of the world, in which a procession of characters try on new selves. Yet these stories and their quiet epiphanies reflect all the contrasts of human existence—from the bittersweet sexuality of "Eros" to the wicked skewering of pompous academic conversation in "The Next Best Kiss." Playful, graceful, acute yet tender, Dressing Up for the Carnival distills all Shields' elegance, wisdom, and humor into stories that are more like concise novels.