Man Descending Paperback - 2000

Excerpt

I suppose it was having a bad chest that turned me into an observer, a watcher, at an early age.

“Charlie has my chest,” my mother often informed friends. “A real weakness there,” she would add significantly, thumping her own wishbone soundly.

I suppose I had. Family lore had me narrowly escaping death from pneumonia at the age of four. It seems I spent an entire Sunday in delirium, soaking the sheets. Dr. Carlyle was off at the reservoir rowing in his little skiff and ­couldn’t be reached — something for which my mother illogically refused to forgive him. She was a woman who nursed and tenaciously held dark grudges. Forever after that incident the doctor was slightingly and coldly dismissed in conversation as a “man who betrayed the public’s trust.”


From the Paperback edition.

Media reviews

“These stories are wonderful! I thought I’d ‘sample’ them, and I’ve read them all with that astonished gratitude you feel when you meet a real writer.”
–Alice Munro

“Technically delightful, with multi-themes and layers of meaning.…These are stories to be reread and remembered.”
–Books in Canada

“[These stories] all repay close reading with solid entertainment.”
–New York Times

“Original and stylish, written with a quirky, self-deprecating awareness of the sad shifts men are put to in order to survive.”
–Daily Telegraph (U.K.)

“Flawless.…Each of these stories circles around in the mind, weaving itself into the fabric of the imagination, until the final lines, when, as if a trap door suddenly opens, the whole world of the story drops en masse into the realm of the heart.”
–Bloomsbury Review (U.S.)

“A remarkable achievement.…The stories mark a compelling debut of an artist who sees with compassion the terror and sometimes the joy of the human condition.”
–David Staines, Ottawa Citizen

“[Vanderhaeghe] is blessed with remarkable poise and assurance.…There’s the same shiver of delight and joy of discovery that accompanied Alice Munro’s first collection of stories.”
–Globe and Mail

“Admirably crafted.…”
–The Guardian

“Stunningly good stories.…The action and dialogue are vivid, authentic and often hilarious.…”
–Winnipeg Free Press

“[The stories] shows Vanderhaeghe’s mastery of irony and his dexterity in maneuvering from the comic to the tragic.”
–Journal-Constitution (U.S.)

“[A] remarkable selection of stories.”
–ALA Booklist (U.S.)

“Any Canadian looking in the bathroom mirror is sure to recognize one of Guy Vanderhaeghe’s people. Man Descending is the startling debut of an excellent writer.”
–Rudy Wiebe