The Miss Hereford stories

by Gail Anderson-Dargatz

Visit the town of Likely, Alberta through the eyes of ten-year-old, Martin Winkle. Most visitors see Likely as nothing more than a sleepy little town. The citizens seem oblivious to the anti-war protests and love-ins thriving across the country. They are content to focus on their 4-H contests and meetings with the Hereford Breeders' Club. As The Miss Hereford Stories unfolds Martin introduces readers to his community, where the old ways are being threatened by the new, fathers and sons are fighting and married lovers are rediscovering one another. Readers will begin to see the magic of Likely and realize it really is more than a sleepy little town.

Genres: Fiction, Short Stories, Canada

144 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1994

About the author

Watch for Gail's new novel, The Almost Widow, a thriller, released May 2023.

GAIL ANDERSON-DARGATZ’s first novel, The Cure for Death by Lightning, was a finalist for the Scotiabank Giller Prize and won the UK’s Betty Trask Award, the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize and the Vancity Book Prize. Her second novel, A Recipe for Bees, was nominated for the International Dublin Literary Award and was a finalist for the Scotiabank Giller Prize. The Spawning Grounds was nominated for the Sunburst Award and the Ontario Library Association Evergreen Award and short-listed for the Canadian Authors Association Literary Award for Fiction. Her thriller, The Almost Wife was a national bestseller in 2021, and her most recent novel, The Almost Widow, is out in May 2023.

Gail also writes young adult and hi-lo books for the educational market. Her book Iggy’s World was a Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Selection and shortlisted for the Chocolate Lily Book Awards. The Ride Home was short-listed for the Sheila A. Egoff Children’s Literature Prize, as well as the Red Cedar Fiction Award and the Chocolate Lily Book Award.

She taught for nearly a decade in the MFA program in creative writing at the University of British Columbia and now mentors writers online. Gail Anderson-Dargatz lives in the Shuswap region of British Columbia.

Reviews

[Leah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gail Anderson-Dargatz is one of my favourite Canadian writers, and to discover this early collection of hers was a delight. This collection of connected short stories set in the fiction small town of Likely, Alberta is at turns funny, dark, filled with pathos and moments of magic. It reminded me at times of W. O. Mitchell (if he had written the Jake and the Kid stories during the decades of the 1970s & 80s). I loved it.

[Carrie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thanks to my sweet husband who tracked down this elusive collection of short stories for me. An excellent book by the author of the outstanding novel, The Cure for Death by Lightning.

[Kris Kennett · Rating 4 out of 5]

Humourous short stories about rural life.

[Tamara Taylor · Rating 3 out of 5]

Equal parts hilarious and dark. Loved the rural Alberta connection.

[Virginia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Funny, horrifying, painfully Canadian and even more painfully reminiscent of the late 1960s and early 70s. The cover blurb says that this collection was nominated for a Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour the year it was published, but rather than straight humour with a touch of magic realism, there’s a vein of sadness and dismay, and includes scenes of bullying and an assault on an 11-year-old girl, and the graphic death of a kitten. Once I pulled my head out of all that, though, I enjoyed the last story describing a cringily funny dinner with the Winkle and Henkleman families. I loved A Cure for Death by Lightning and am on the lookout for more by this lovely Canadian author.

[Andree · Rating 2 out of 5]

Picked this up on a whim at a used bookstore because I have vague memories of reading one of the author's books years ago. It's probably a 3 star read, but I'm rounding down, because I didn't really like this. It looks like it's going to be charming and funny and real. It feels real, and is occasionally funny, but it's too full of life's little cruelty's (to no purpose) to be something I enjoyed, and it didn't feel charming. That said, I do think it's well written. It's very slice of life. And while I've never lived in rural Alberta, I suspect it's realistic. I could see enjoying this, just not for me.

[Pauline Clark · Rating 4 out of 5]

I want to re-read this book just to capture some of the things the author says all over again. This book spoke to me in many ways--so many slices of life I could visualize.