Author Description

Dayv James-French is an elegant and fastidious writer of stories which disturb yet engage and delight us. Although this is his first book he is already a master of dialogue and silences and his writing compels us to listen carefully. Reviewing Dayv James-French's work to date in his Toronto Star column `New Voices,' Jason Sherman wrote: `The attraction is James-French's ability to perceive misery without succumbing to it. It is not just that there is humour in his work -- and there is a lot of humour -- it is that there is hope, as well.' The first story in Victims of Gravity begins: `There's an art to this.' The last ends: `whether or not a story has a happy ending.' In between Dayv James-French reveals a complex world, defined with wit and compassion, where a happy ending is less important than the rewards of the journey to it. `I never know what to say when I'm asked what a story is ``about''. What's life about? Any synopsis of the stories -- ``An overnight visit to a farm becomes an off-the-wall examination of two solitudes as a married woman tries to isolate the grounds of her emotional dissatisfaction while a gay man drugs himself past his own pain'' (``Cows'') -- sounds grim, as though I were leading the reader to an obvious conclusion; a neatly-tied up epiphany, if not a moral. Instead, I'm trying to convince readers of their own experience, its authenticity, and assure them that someone is paying attention.' `Even the ``Dave'' stories aren't entirely about me. An image, a remembered scrap of conversation, a personal emotional response I have to examine because of its inappropriateness; those are starting points. I obsess for weeks before I find my way into a story. More than a few times I've had to abandon a story after ten or twelve pages because I couldn't love the characters enough. At the same time, I don't -- can't -- make them fit into my obsessions. All of these stories remained unfinished until the