Hugh Hood has been called Canada`s foremost writer of short stories, and this book—the first complete critical work on Hood`s short stories—illustrates why he is the master craftsman of this genre. Hood has always insisted that his short-story collections should be treated as a unity—as if each story were a chapter of a novel. In this book, the author accepts Hood`s challenge, and shows how his six collections to date are carefully arranged in relation to a guiding theme. As Copoloff-Mechanic shows, the stories in each of the collections are carefully interconnected to illuminate the details of Canadian life in terms of a universal, timeless drama.