Short takes
New collections benefit, respectively, from stylistic diversityand thematic integrity
BY ROBERT J. WIERSEMA
SHORT FICTION
The Path of Most Resistance
Russell Wangersky
House of Anansi Press
Take Us to Your Chief
Drew Hayden Taylor
Douglas & McIntyre
WITHThe Path of Most Resistance, his first new collection since the Scotiabank Giller Prize–shortlisted Whirl Away in 2012, Russell Wangersky affirms his position as one of the finest short-story writers currently working in this country. Following on the heels of his 2014 thriller, Walt, which was named one of the top crime books of the year by the National Post, and the earlier collection, which was also nominated for the BMO Winterset Award and won the Thomas Raddall Atlantic Fiction Award, Wangersky has delivered a collection unified in its quality, but eclectic and surprising in the breadth of its styles, subjects, and techniques.