Toronto Star
June 15, 2008

There are no easy fixes in The Cult of Quick Repair. Little can be done to rescue the conflicted mothers, indiscreet hockey players, frigid marine biologists and cuckolded husbands from head-on collisions with their appointed, often seedy fates.

B.C. writer and former ballerina Dede Crane has hit an elegant and sustained note with this collection of short fiction. Crane's 2006 novel, Sympathy, received very positive reviews, as did her foray into juvenile fiction, The 25 Pains of Kennedy Baines. It's as if the well-deserved encouragement pushed Crane to the next level as a writer. The Cult of Quick Repair is a masterful, mature set of intricate narratives that captivate, infuriate and surprise the reader.

Like American writers Lorrie Moore and Ann Beattie before her, Crane finds humour and some solace, but little redemption, in the human experience. Still, it sure is fun to go along with Crane as she plumbs the murky and intractable depths of the modern psyche. Her characters' frequent missteps and subsequently awkward attempts at recovery and equilibrium are never clichéd or predictable. (Think John Cheever, only with less drinking, and substitute Crane's horny housewives for Cheever's repressed WASPs.)

The strongest stories in the collection, "What Sort of Mother," "Next" and "Fireworks," feature a disgruntled woman at the center of the narrative. These are women of action who don't suffer in silence. They are simultaneously and alternately bored, restless, sexy, angry, depressed or dissatisfied. Only their feelings of mounting urgency are palpable.

In "Fireworks," the urgency takes on new meaning as a cerebral biologist couple comically tries to ignite the ashen embers of their bland relationship. There's something inherently funny about a frigid marine biologist carefully staging her first orgasm at a picnic next to a river – like a spawning salmon.

Beyond the riverbanks and into dining rooms, Crane's realistic portrait of family life is unsparing yet compassionate. I grimaced with recognition at her portrayal of the archetypal, disapproving mother-in-law in "What Sort of Mother": "Like they've done every Sunday of their married life, Nancy, Johnny and the kids are driving from Victoria to Sydney to Johnny's parents house for dinner. Nancy goes for Johnny's sake, but feels the same annoyance and dread as she did as a child forced to attend Sunday mass. Under her mother-in-law's damning eye, she has the irrational fear of being exposed as a heathen, the one among them who doesn't believe in God and family."

Nancy is not only a disappointment as a daughter-in-law, she also has a hair-trigger temper and a crush on her husband's brother. Her self-destructive tendencies are worthy of Dr. Phil.

In "Best Friends," Crane has some fun mocking the NHL's macho image, the players' goldfish bowl existence and the fragile camaraderie of professional athletes. To anchor her plot, she recounts the fallout from the homoerotic, and very public, post-goal kiss of a star player and his closest teammate. Crane captures the superstitious pre-game rituals, the acrylic-clawed wives and the judgmental friend who hovers around for a closer view of the fallout, with realistic and surprising accuracy. Maybe ballet and hockey aren't that far apart?

The title story is an eloquent and measured account of a daughter's tense bedside vigil. The dutiful Janet juggles her irresponsible younger brother with a group of well-meaning Buddhists; their round-the-clock vigil in her dying mother's living room is more strain than spiritual succor.

"Medium Security" depicts a ballet company that performs at a prison facility. The narrative voice is strained, distant and awkward. It lacks the immediacy of the other stories. But this is a singular and minor flaw in an otherwise perfect collection.

The Cult of Quick Repair may not offer any quick fixes, yet it satisfied this reader's appetite for a short story fix while I wait in prayer for another Alice Munro collection. Bravo.

Patricia Robertson is a Saskatchewan-based freelance writer.