SOURCE: A review of Real Mothers, in The Fiddlehead, No. 135, January, 1983, pp. 110-14.

In the following review, Godard explores the relationships of language and narrative to meaning in Real Mothers.

Any doubt as to whether Thomas is one of our major writers should be dispelled in this new collection of short stores [Real Mothers]. Containing some unpublished works like "Déjeuner sur l'herbe" and some which have appeared in periodicals like The Capilano Review (such as "Timbuktu"), it also includes three prize winning stories: "Harry & Violet" (1980 National Magazine Awards), "Natural History" (1980 CBC Radio Literary Competition) and "Real Mothers" (1981 Chatelaine Short Story Contest). Though signalling excellence and attracting a wider audience for Thomas, prizes are far from the whole story. Her old readers will find here their familiar rewards in Thomas' carefully rubbed jewels of language.

Thomas plays on the duplicity, the multiplicity of language, its paradoxes and overlays...