"Times of Sickness and Health" - A Short Story by Carol Shields -16 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.

"Times of Health and Sickness " is the 32nd short story by Carol Shields upon which I have posted.

"Many people resent advice, and Kay has never been able to understand this. A man she knows, Nils Almquist, a cataloger in the museum where she works, tells her that this resistance to advice is a Teutonic failing, that people from Mediterranean countries—Greece, Italy, Spain—routinely ask the advice of their friends and relatives before making a major decision."

Shields excels in laying out long lives in a few Pages.  As in numerous of her other stories, the lead characters do intellectual work, in this case as museum curators. They travel to Sardia as a long married couple.

The Carol Shields Literary Trust has biographical data and accounts of her novels