It's rare in these busy times to stumble upon a novel worthy of the glorious yet exhausting all-night read. But within the first few pages of "The Good Body," I knew that a good night's sleep was not in the cards. It's 5AM in the morning; my work day is doomed, yet my mind still reels from the poetic beauty and honesty that is this novel. Can a mere book still move a jaded reader to tears? The answer, thanks to Lewis Nordan's "Sharpshooter Blues", Jonathan Franzen's "The Corrections," and now Bill Gaston's "The Good Body," is a resounding YES! What a triumph!

Three of these excellent stories by Bill Gaston stand out in my mind: the tale of a soused would-be Lothario on vacation in Prince Edward Island with his ailing wife and 4 grubby kids, a story about taking the possibilities of sexual intimacy in marriage to a new level and a story (written almost in the form of letter or newspaper report) about a man obsessed with saving the world by destroying TVs (literally).

I appreciate this author's wry view of life in smalltown Canada (Fredericton, New Brunswick was the locale for many of the stories). It's good to see a man writing about the daily struggle withfamily & intimacy, in all its forms; one character's nerves are jangled by the sounds of his family chewing their food (hey, I can relate to that!).

Gaston is a fine writer whose work pulses with humour and emotional honesty. His men may be loners, husbands or fathers. (Some of them are all 3--living the existential truth that we are ALL alone.) They are also fallible andthus loveable. The fact that they seem to like to play hockey is truly unfortunate (as I said, they're fallible!)

Many of the stories resonate with the foibles of small-town Canada: the guy with long hair who works in a record store, lives alone in a dirty bungalow and has never given up smoking pot--YES, that's what happens when you never leave home!

Gaston was born in 1953--so was I!--and his sensibilities speak to Baby Boomers like me who grew up in small towns, tuned in and turned on, then dropped out for awhile before going to university, getting a job, and now--as Daniel Lanois wrote (and Emmylou Harris sang) in one of his haunting tunes:-- we're "raising kids, from raising hell". This is where Gaston's characters find themselves: in middle age, having been part of the 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s. Along the way, they've played with sex, drugs, rock & roll and Buddhism! It all figures into the lives Gaston paints in the pages of this excellent collection of short stories. He is one of Canada's gems!

I also highly recommend 2 of Gaston's novels, Tall Lives and Inviting Blindness.