What Can't Be Changed Shouldn't Be Mourned

by W.D. Valgardson

Urban paranoia and rural innocence are the themes of these stories, in which W.D. Valgardson moves effortlessly from examining West Coast city life to fishing the inland sea of Manitoba.

With a quietly understated and often disturbing realism, Valgardson explores domesticity, the trials and tribulations of ritual and routine, the terror of the everyday. It is his attention to the small details, the simple acts, that makes his stories so individual and accomplished.

146 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1990

About the author

William Dempsey Valgardson (born 7 May 1939) is a Canadian novelist, short story writer, and poet. Born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, and raised in Gimli, Manitoba, he completed his BA at United College, BEd at the University of Manitoba, and his MFA at the University of Iowa. He was a long-time professor of writing at the University of Victoria in British Columbia.

His writing often focuses on cultural differences and involve irony and symbolism. His short stories involve normal people in normal situations, yet under certain circumstances, lead unusual and surprising lives.

Valgardson has won numerous awards and accolades, including the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize for The Girl With the Botticelli Face (1992) and the Books in Canada First Novel Award for Gentle Sinners (1980). His short story, "Bloodflowers", was included in Best American Short Stories 1971.