Widow Fantasies
In a recent publication with Gordon Hill Press, author Hollay Ghadery has shown a mastery of the flash fiction genre with her collection of 33 stories titled, “Widow Fantasies.” Conversations centred around this collection in other reviews and interviews mark an exploration of the concept of fantasy, but, what I took from these pieces is another navigation of intimacy. What we want to know of our partner, of ourselves, to connect with others, or, to reconnect with ourselves. Intimacy meant to be shared and those slippery moments of discovery of others’ intimacy they never intended for us to know. How we orbit each other, pulling and pushing each other away, was apparent to me in these stories, especially how women are journeying through intimacy in their lives, searching for connection, searching for ways out, wanting to know more of themselves. Lives of women, “Widow Fantasies” grips the reader and pulls them through passages into an array of other women’s lives, hooked in glimpses that cuts to the bone quick, the reader will not leave a story untouched.
I was amazed with the quality of writing that immersed me seamlessly and deftly into another life, point-of-view or voyeur position in the corner observing extremely private character moments. Pushed straight into the conflict and hard edges of what the characters are facing, “Widow Fantasies” will be a memorable collection of short stories for me that I want to study as a writer and as a woman. Each story contains a whole lifetime presented with firm execution in about 2-3 pages. What is left out can sometimes turn the story into deeper meaning and carry the reader beyond the extension of the page, like those fruit in Dutch breakfast paintings risking teetering and falling into our frame for the observer of art to catch, or risk falling. “She’ll remember that when the wind hit the maples, they shook like wet dogs.” A final line like that, it has the power to flip the story and haunt the reader into knowing the extent of what is left unsaid beyond the page.
Ghadery commented on her social media that the shortness of her pieces reflected her state as a mother writing in time frames permissive of what a mother can do. As a reading mother, I needed these pieces, and I could enter into these micro-worlds as a reading mother can do, slipping between reality and escapism. I deem the integrity of the collection would have been compromised with longer stories.
Hollay Ghadery is being heard within the Canlit community and beyond. Her memoir, “Fuse,” a memoir, published by Guernica Editions’ MiroLand imprint in 2021 began conversations around mental health and mixed-race identity speaking to her experience of being Iranian-Canadian decent. The work also won the 2023 Canadian Bookclub Award for Nonfiction/Memoir. Ghadery’s debut collection of poetry, “Rebellion Box,” was published by Radiant Press in 2023. She received The New Quarterly’s 2022 Nick Blatchford Occasional Vere Prize with a title piece from the collection. She has been published in various literary journals like The Malahat Review, Grain, Understorey, The Antigonish Review, The Fiddlehead, and Room. Ghadery earned her BAH in English Language and Literature from Queen’s University and an MFA in creative writing from Guelph University. She is the host of 105.5 HITS FM Bookclub, as well as HOWL on CIUT 89.5 FM. Ghadery has 20 years of experience working as a content, PR and communications specialist. She is the founder of River Street Writing promoting and representing Canadian authors and writers. Ghadery is also the Poet Laureate of Scugog Township.
“Widow Fantasies” is a literary work with the sophistication of plot development and rich imagery that roots down into absorbing threads of intimacy. There is a play with Ghadery’s language that intrigued me and wrapped me into the glow of her characters. She has created imagery in motion, her diction is alive simply with the application of verbs as adjectives. She achieves movement. She achieves sound. I was taken into the character’s private orbs this way: “the synthetic punch of his body wash,” or the “splat of water on the shower floor.” There is also an ongoing line of aquatic imagery, like, “his furrowed brow and slick fish-lipped focus in the shower.” And, “a thick curl falls across his forehead like an inky tentacle.” We are creatures of oceanic depths, in turn. Unexplored. Exploring. I loved this language, this poetry in motion.
Ghadery reflects on “Widow Fantasies,” “I wanted to write the book I needed but ended up writing this instead.” I needed this collection. I am still grappling with and pulling through my experience with recent events that have surfaced about Alice Munro. I was studying her writing and the short story structure. I wanted more stories that lead us quickly and deeply into lives of women. I wanted more stories written by women, especially women within the Canlit community that can push the craft of writing further, yet warm me with a sense of reading nostalgia of venturing with fictional women through the rooms of their lives. These lives are not over. The writing is not done.
Thank you to Hollay Ghadery, Gordon Hill Press and River Street Writing for the complimentary copy in exchange for an honest review!
