The stories in Thirteen Ways of Looking reflect an understanding of the swiftly disappearing flow of our lives as knowing and unflinching as any by Joyce or Chekhov.
[McCann's] story 'Sh'Khol,' included in Thirteen Ways of Looking, is as fine a piece of short fiction as I've read in the last five years. It's haunting and surprising, like everything from this amazing writer.
McCann tries his best here to allow his creative imagination to do the work of forgiveness, of impartiality, to imagine himself—as a good fiction writer must do—not just as one perspective on the drama but as all of them. That he has fallen somewhat short of that priestly goal is not only understandable; it’s somehow more interesting, more moving, more distinctly human than it would have been had he succeeded.
In lesser hands, this story could be tedious and self-absorbed: Who wants to read a writer’s writings about writer’s block? But Mr. McCann uses it to show how in fiction, as in life, the possibilities are endless, questions leading to more questions, one thought bleeding into another.
The irreducible mystery of human experience ties this small collection together, and in each of these stories McCann explores that theme in some strikingly effective ways.
The three short stories that conclude the collection are extraordinary; in the shorter fiction his prose becomes incandescent, charged with the economy and lyricism of poetry.
One of the strengths of McCann’s writing is his ability to place himself, and so his reader, in another’s body; here, as Rebecca moves through the wild landscape, this gift is powerfully displayed. The end is surprising and moving.
These remarkable tales expertly articulate either conflicting feelings...or ungovernable feelings...Throughout, McCann makes us share his characters’ pain and their eventual cathartic release, and he helps us to understand and appreciate that there is 'A lot of volume in this life. Echoes too.'
