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Overhead in a Balloon and other stories
A selection of short stories reminding us of the inhumanities people practise on one another and of the inconclusive aspects of our destiny and how they can sometimes be mastered by acts of recognition.
This Faber & Faber edition contains both Gallant's previous collections Overhead in a Ballon and Home Truths in a single volume.
This Faber & Faber edition contains both Gallant's previous collections Overhead in a Ballon and Home Truths in a single volume.
544 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1985
5 people are currently reading
134 people want to read
About the author
Mavis Gallant
89 books257 followersCanadian journalist and fiction writer. In her twenties, Gallant worked as a reporter for the Montreal Standard. She left journalism in 1950 to pursue fiction writing. To that end, always needing autonomy and privacy, she moved to France.
In 1981, Gallant was honoured by her native country and made an Officer of the Order of Canada for her contribution to literature. That same year she also received the Governor General's Award for literature for her collection of stories, Home Truths. In 1983-84, she returned to Canada as the University of Toronto's writer-in-residence. In 1991 Queen’s University awarded her an honorary LL.D. In 1993 she was promoted to Companion of the Order of Canada.
In 1989, Gallant was made a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. In 2000, she won the Matt Cohen Prize, and in 2002 the Rea Award for the Short Story. The O. Henry Prize Stories of 2003 was dedicated to her. In 2004, Gallant was awarded a Lannan Literary Fellowship.
With Alice Munro, Gallant was one of a few Canadian authors whose works regularly appeared in The New Yorker. Many of Gallant’s stories had debuted in the magazine before subsequently being published in a collection.
Although she maintained her Canadian citizenship, Gallant continued to live in Paris, France since the 1950s.
On November 8, 2006, Mavis Gallant received the Prix Athanase-David from the government of her native province of Quebec. She was the first author writing in English to receive this award in its 38 years of existence.
In 1981, Gallant was honoured by her native country and made an Officer of the Order of Canada for her contribution to literature. That same year she also received the Governor General's Award for literature for her collection of stories, Home Truths. In 1983-84, she returned to Canada as the University of Toronto's writer-in-residence. In 1991 Queen’s University awarded her an honorary LL.D. In 1993 she was promoted to Companion of the Order of Canada.
In 1989, Gallant was made a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. In 2000, she won the Matt Cohen Prize, and in 2002 the Rea Award for the Short Story. The O. Henry Prize Stories of 2003 was dedicated to her. In 2004, Gallant was awarded a Lannan Literary Fellowship.
With Alice Munro, Gallant was one of a few Canadian authors whose works regularly appeared in The New Yorker. Many of Gallant’s stories had debuted in the magazine before subsequently being published in a collection.
Although she maintained her Canadian citizenship, Gallant continued to live in Paris, France since the 1950s.
On November 8, 2006, Mavis Gallant received the Prix Athanase-David from the government of her native province of Quebec. She was the first author writing in English to receive this award in its 38 years of existence.
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
April 10, 2018
Nobody writes like Mavis Gallant, most people who adore Ms. Gallant adore Gripes and Prism but man I haven't heard enough praise for Edouard, Juliette and Lena's stories.
January 10, 2016
oh god, incredible. The upside of MG is, you'll know pretty much straight away if you love her or not, because either every sentence cuts like a knife and is so perfect and exact (me), or you're like 'this is boring, what's it about?' (my friend). You can find her prose in places on the internet, for instance a brief selection from her journals on the new yorker website
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/201...
and you'll know straight away. She wrote short stories and nothing else, although a few are very long, and she was a short story writer, like Chekhov and Mansfield, these aren't 'sketches i knocked off because there's not enough there for a novel' like most short stories - and ss are not my favourite literary form by a long way, usually my least. So you've decided you like her, which book to pick? Well, her best story ever is the one about a guy recuperating called 'a remission', and 'overhead in a balloon' (random title to content: mainly about a guy searching for a flat in paris) is her second best. The widely rated 'the icewagon down the street' is rubbish. Another one of the stories in this collection is one of her best: there's a set of four about a guy who fiddles a tax return and gets found out and has to file his accounts in person from then on, who ends up knowing the tax inspector quite well (yes, really) and one of them is one of her best. The 'famous' set of four about a guy who marries a jewish woman to save her from the nazis who then goes on to destroy his life by being stupid, only the first one or two are great the second two are dull. The one about a gallery owner who wants to discover a major artist so he can have a bit of prestige is great and very related to 'Overhead'. 'From the 15th' is a funny sketch that's hilarious (she does a few other not funny ones). Going Ashore is a great story. I'm pretty certain that one of the ones i've mentioned - the tax collection one or something - is in this volume, and that this and the remission books would be the ones of choice to buy first. All have some great and some dull (not the writing, just the story doesn't take off - she's not scared of the pedestrian or of hinting) stories, but the great ones stick like glue in your memory and her prose is razor-sharp. And hilarious by subtlety (the put-down near the end of Overhead) etc... Seriously good writer. One of those the Americans kept for themselves and the British should discover. Her forte is a background and atmosphere of postwar France and Germany where everything is still poor, in piles of ruins and craters from bombing, full of bitter homeless refugees worrying about visas, rationing meets cold war meets forgetting or ignoring it... this strong sense of exile, grey misery (you imagine cold and rain), and uncertainty, open-ness, perhaps fear, is one of her best features: i checked some stuff, and all the stuff she says - about the huge number of Polish refugees, about the difficulty of getting work or visas, and other historical fact stuff, is correct, and she was unusual in talking openly about it (an American readership probably helped). She also writes a good upper class English and lots of Canadian - more Paris, but a lot of Canadian. The one about being small children in Montreal (?quebec city) and the one about a woman whose engagements always go wrong are the best of these. Her stories don't go where you think they're going usually. Sharp and surprising. An incredible writer. Avoid the 'paris stories' etc type collections and stick to the original sets or buy the collected, because the selections are stupid and you'll want to read all of them without paying twice. Also don't buy her 'uncollected' stories: full of stinkers: i think it's called 'going ashore' and that's the only good one in it: it's very cheap everywhere. Shell out for this one or the book with The Remission in it. And i bet, if you don't love it, one of your relatives will and you can recycle it as a christmas present.
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/201...
and you'll know straight away. She wrote short stories and nothing else, although a few are very long, and she was a short story writer, like Chekhov and Mansfield, these aren't 'sketches i knocked off because there's not enough there for a novel' like most short stories - and ss are not my favourite literary form by a long way, usually my least. So you've decided you like her, which book to pick? Well, her best story ever is the one about a guy recuperating called 'a remission', and 'overhead in a balloon' (random title to content: mainly about a guy searching for a flat in paris) is her second best. The widely rated 'the icewagon down the street' is rubbish. Another one of the stories in this collection is one of her best: there's a set of four about a guy who fiddles a tax return and gets found out and has to file his accounts in person from then on, who ends up knowing the tax inspector quite well (yes, really) and one of them is one of her best. The 'famous' set of four about a guy who marries a jewish woman to save her from the nazis who then goes on to destroy his life by being stupid, only the first one or two are great the second two are dull. The one about a gallery owner who wants to discover a major artist so he can have a bit of prestige is great and very related to 'Overhead'. 'From the 15th' is a funny sketch that's hilarious (she does a few other not funny ones). Going Ashore is a great story. I'm pretty certain that one of the ones i've mentioned - the tax collection one or something - is in this volume, and that this and the remission books would be the ones of choice to buy first. All have some great and some dull (not the writing, just the story doesn't take off - she's not scared of the pedestrian or of hinting) stories, but the great ones stick like glue in your memory and her prose is razor-sharp. And hilarious by subtlety (the put-down near the end of Overhead) etc... Seriously good writer. One of those the Americans kept for themselves and the British should discover. Her forte is a background and atmosphere of postwar France and Germany where everything is still poor, in piles of ruins and craters from bombing, full of bitter homeless refugees worrying about visas, rationing meets cold war meets forgetting or ignoring it... this strong sense of exile, grey misery (you imagine cold and rain), and uncertainty, open-ness, perhaps fear, is one of her best features: i checked some stuff, and all the stuff she says - about the huge number of Polish refugees, about the difficulty of getting work or visas, and other historical fact stuff, is correct, and she was unusual in talking openly about it (an American readership probably helped). She also writes a good upper class English and lots of Canadian - more Paris, but a lot of Canadian. The one about being small children in Montreal (?quebec city) and the one about a woman whose engagements always go wrong are the best of these. Her stories don't go where you think they're going usually. Sharp and surprising. An incredible writer. Avoid the 'paris stories' etc type collections and stick to the original sets or buy the collected, because the selections are stupid and you'll want to read all of them without paying twice. Also don't buy her 'uncollected' stories: full of stinkers: i think it's called 'going ashore' and that's the only good one in it: it's very cheap everywhere. Shell out for this one or the book with The Remission in it. And i bet, if you don't love it, one of your relatives will and you can recycle it as a christmas present.
June 21, 2015
The late Mavis Gallant came much recommended. The prose is skillful and well-targeted but arch. These stories come in batches linked to art dealers and patrons, quarreling novelists, and a man who marries one woman to save her from the Nazis--even though she identifies as Catholic--which has long-term repercussions for a second with whom he lives. But, especially when grappling with the people who patronize, sell and make art, this is a case of a prose writer who portrays artists and the business of art with a judgmental if ironic eye. The two stories that seemed to escape that critical view, in which the people seemed to step out of their poses and live, were a stand-alone one about a boy who disappoints his parents by failing at school and another about the original marriage. In these two, at last, were people for all their defects who seemed to look at life as something beyond gamesmanship. As for Gallant, at least in this collection, one can appreciate the artistry without necessarily admiring the art.
April 21, 2014
Oh, I enjoyed this. I liked the semi-novelistic sweep and the humor,andiLOVED Grippes and Prism. I want a movie or mini series about them. Or a nice long epistolary novel that also includes hotel receipts and acidulous postcards.
Read
December 17, 2025the only reason this took me so long to finish is because i literally could not care less about grippes and poche. i understand what they are meant to satirize and i generally like that satirization (monterrosso and nabokov for example) but for some reason their stories didn't hit for me...
the others in this collection are spectacular. especially the three linked stories at the end––afterimages of the war in postwar paris... had almost a ferrante quality to them. as with ferrante I probably could have benefited from more knowledge of postwar french politics going into this, but even absent of that this was really quite enjoyable!!!
the others in this collection are spectacular. especially the three linked stories at the end––afterimages of the war in postwar paris... had almost a ferrante quality to them. as with ferrante I probably could have benefited from more knowledge of postwar french politics going into this, but even absent of that this was really quite enjoyable!!!
Read
January 16, 2024What a great, intensely quotable book. The characters are sometimes depicted in resplendent foolishness, as failures, but also somehow tenderly. And even the dumbest ones are acting a very cosmopolitan intelligent world--they may have read bad books and looked at bad art, but still!
April 9, 2025
I liked a few of the stories but most were very dull and annoying
March 7, 2017
Interesting study of poeple living in France during and after WW2.
July 8, 2013
No question Gallant is one of the most insightful (and incisive) writers of fiction working today. The details here are so precise and revealing—such as noting a character who always turns her rings inward when pulling on her gloves—that each one of these stories is a thick pleasure to wade through. There's no fluff, and yet the stories don't feel contrived or weighted either. I liked the series (toward the end) of "A Recollection," "Rue de Lille," "The Colonel's Child," and "Lena" for its ability to draw a thread through a man's life and his two marriages, while each felt thoroughly distinct and uniquely descriptive.
By the end (and maybe this is the problem with reading a collection straight through), I felt a numbing sadness accompany the reading, as each one of these characters lives a particularly despondent existence. The telling is good, but the story to be told lacks joy. Humor comes at an expense, and delight seems like a foreign concept. One character is said to have gone to America for a summer and returned "with a different coloration to her manner, a glaze of independence, as though she had been exposed to a new kind of sun." It's the hint at a world the rest of these characters have never seen.
By the end (and maybe this is the problem with reading a collection straight through), I felt a numbing sadness accompany the reading, as each one of these characters lives a particularly despondent existence. The telling is good, but the story to be told lacks joy. Humor comes at an expense, and delight seems like a foreign concept. One character is said to have gone to America for a summer and returned "with a different coloration to her manner, a glaze of independence, as though she had been exposed to a new kind of sun." It's the hint at a world the rest of these characters have never seen.
October 13, 2011
Mavis Gallant matches Alice Munro in her writing skills and finely-tuned eye for human foibles. Her characters are so Parisian with different preoccupations and experiences. They move through a different world. Reading the collection reminded me of my love for Gallant's imagination.
August 31, 2012
Paris,quirky
June 15, 2015
Deep. Felt like I should reread it and then write a couple of essays on it. Not really enjoyable but made me think.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews