"Hinterland" - A Short Story by Carol Shields- 20 Pages - included in The Short Stories of Carol Shields- 2004

 Buriedinprint.com 

This year, Buried in Print, a marvelous blog I have followed for over ten years,is doing a read through of the short stories of Carol Shields. I hope to participate fully in this event.

The more I read in the stories of Carol Shields the more grateful I am to Buried in Print for turning me on to her work. There are sixty some stories in the collection,it is my hope to read and post on them all in 2024.

"Hinterland" is the 30th short story by Carol Shields upon which I have posted.  The story centers on a middles aged married couple with two grown daughters.  One of the daughters has recently moved back home after a fight with her husband.  

"EVERYONE SEEMS TO HAVE STAYED PUT this year except Meg and Roy Sloan of Milwaukee, Wisconsin...Although both Meg and Roy are patriotic in a vague and non-rhetorical way, and good mature citizens who pay their taxes and vote and hold opinions on gun legislation and abortion, they’ve chosen this year to ignore the exhortation of their president to stay home and see America first. The Grand Canyon can wait, Roy says in the sociable weekend voice he more and more distrusts. The Black Hills can wait. And the Everglades. And Chesapeake Bay..."

They have decided to spend three weeks in Paris. 

"Over the years, in the seasonal rounds of business and pleasure and special anniversaries, Meg and Roy Sloan have set foot on most of the continents of the world: Asia, Australia, South America—and, of course, Europe. They have, in fact, been to Paris on two previous occasions...And now, in the autumn of 1986, an uneasy, untrustful time in the world’s history, the Sloans have returned. “But why?” quite a number of their friends said. “Why Paris, of all places!” .

Shields packs so much into twenty pages, a terrorist scare at a museum, exploring shops, dining, and an account of the dynamics of a marriage.