In the Shadow of Crows by M.V. Feehan

Short Fiction Review by James M. Fisher

As the "Founding Editor" of another book review site, I have built many relationships over the years with large and small presses. One of the smaller ones is Baraka Books out of Quebec. Its president and publisher, Robin Philpot knows what I like when it comes to good literary fiction, and he'll often send me an Advance Reading Copy (ARC) of an upcoming title along with a brief note about the book. Such was the case with In the Shadow of Crows by Nova Scotian author M.V. Feehan. A slim (100 pages) volume of interlinked short stories, with a cover featuring Alex Colville's "Seven Crows", I was eager to delve in.

For those not familiar with the "Counting Crows" rhyme, here it is:

One for sorrow, two for joy,
three for a message, four for a boy,
five for silver, six for gold,
seven for a secret never to be told.

Each story in In the Shadow of Crows begins with a line from the rhyme, so there are seven stories containing the respective number of crows, plus an extra story that acts as an Epilogue of sorts, bringing the collection full circle.

The stories take place in St. Anne's on Cape Breton Island, where "movies only played on weekends, two restaurants with identical menus closed at six, where one tavern and two churches were not particularly friendly to the newer folks that lived in their midst." Know of a place like that? The close-knit, yet claustrophobic atmosphere of a small town resonates throughout each story.

The stories jump around the years, with some of the characters appearing at different moments in their lives, such as Emmet, whom we meet in 1991, dying in St. Anne's hospital in the first story. He has flashbacks to his coming home from WWI and will appear again in the book in another story but in 1956. The common denominator in all the stories, aside from the town, is the crows and how they figure into each story. For example, in the first story, "One for Sorrow, Hart's Crossing: 1945" Emmet sees a single crow from his hospital window:

"...he noticed a crow at the edge of the alley. He turned away from it as his girls did when they were small and looked to the sky for another bird to raise the count to two: he could use two crows today."

Alas, joy is not to be found for Emmet either in the hospital or in his post-war homecoming flashbacks.

Ms. Feehan ingeniously crafts each story so that we get an idea of what life in St. Anne's is like, as well as a feel for its inhabitants. At times, I didn't realize that the names I was reading were people I had already met (or would later meet), so enraptured I was in each story. Looking back as I write this review, there were a few occasions when I didn't realize that the characters were all related (by birth or by marriage)! A reread was in order!

I can highly recommend this small but mighty collection of excellent short stories. Each one has the requisite amount of tension to keep the reader engaged and wanting to finish the book in one sitting, which would be easy enough to do. Doing so would cause the reader to miss certain subtleties that Ms. Feehan has incorporated into this collection, such as the aforementioned inter-relatedness of her characters and the trials they have gone through (or are going through) at the time. A remarkable example of interlinked stories that leave you wanting more from an author to watch. I'm sure there are many more stories to come out of little St. Anne.

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About the Author

Born in Nova Scotia, M.V. Feehan has lived, studied and worked in many cities and towns throughout Canada, the United States and Ireland including Inverness, Montreal, Edmonton, Vancouver Island, Boston, Providence, and Dublin. She spent years as a reader and editor for the Vancouver literary journal Room and was a member and reader for the Providence Writer's Circle Annual Publication. Her work has appeared in Canadian, American and European journals and in the anthology Echoes of Elizabeth Bishop. In past years she has received the Budge Wilson Award, The Hedy Zimra Scholarship and the E. Bishop Centenarian Fiction Award. She completed her MPhil in Creative Writing at Trinity College Dublin in May 2021 and received the Individual Arts Grant from NSArts in 2022. This year she also received a place in the Alistair MacLeod Mentorship Program to complete her first collection of short stories In the Shadow of Crows. Verna currently resides on Cape Breton Island with her husband and son.

Book Details

• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Baraka Books (June 1 2024)

• Language ‏ : ‎ English

• Paperback ‏ : ‎ 100 pages

• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1771863471

• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1771863476