The Terris are engaging people, but they are a family in collapse. Alcoholism, drugs, and loveless sex have reduced them to a petty and wasted bunch. Worse, they typify aspects of the larger community besieged by financial woes and by creeping economic and cultural Americanization.
What David Adams Richards accomplishes is no mean feat: his characters are at times vicious, sleazy, and even outright dim, yet he manages to entitle them to the interest and sympathy of the reader.
Even more now than at its first publication in 1981, Lives of Short Duration’s sharp, essential insights have significance for readers seeking to understand the modern Canadian predicament.
- ISBN10 0771098863
- ISBN13 9780771098864
- Publish Date 30 April 1993 (first published 15 March 1986)
- Publish Status Out of Print
- Out of Print 11 December 2011
- Publish Country CA
- Imprint McClelland & Stewart Inc.
- Format Paperback (A-Format (178x111 mm))
- Pages 400
- Language English