The Pegnitz Junction: A Novella and Five Short Stories

Mavis Gallant

déc. 2014 · Open Road Media

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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 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.

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In 1952 Mavis Gallant (1922–2014) left a successful career as a journalist in Montreal to live independently as a writer of fiction in Europe. She had gained international recognition in 1951 when she was published in the New Yorker, which in subsequent years released over one hundred of her short stories, most of which are set in European cities or Montreal. Random House published twelve volumes of her work. Gallant was awarded the 1981 Governor General’s Award for Home Truths, the 2002 Rea Award for the Short Story, and the 2004 PEN/Nabokov Award for lifetime achievement. She was a companion of the Order of Canada, the country’s highest honor. After traveling widely in Europe, in 1960 Gallant settled in Paris, where she died in 2014. The Journals of Mavis Gallant: 1952–1969 is tentatively scheduled for publication by Alfred A. Knopf in 2015.