SOURCE: "Imagination's Invisible Ink," in Women's Review of Books, Vol. XI, No. 8, May, 1994, p. 20.

In the following review of Happenstance and The Stone Diaries, Pool argues that while similar in nature and focus, the latter is more complex.

You would expect that good books from a country as close to us (in every sense) as Canada would quickly find American covers. Apparently not. It has taken more than a decade for the first US edition of Carol Shields' Happenstance to appear, and I suspect we might not have it even now if her latest work, The Stone Diaries, had not been short-listed for last year's Booker Prize. Whatever their literary merit, awards are good promotion even for finalists, encouraging publishers to furnish early and out-of-print work. In Shields' case this is all to the good, and I hope we will soon see her earlier novels, Small Ceremonies and...