{"product_id":"9780889841734","title":"The Box Social \u0026 Other Stories","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Box Social \u0026amp; Other Stories\u003c\/i\u003e gathers together nine of James Reaney's short fictions written in the 40s and early 50s and never previously collected in book form.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe collection takes its title from a short piece the author originally published in the University College \u003ci\u003eUndergrad\u003c\/i\u003e and which provoked a firestorm of eight hundred angry letters from subscribers when it was republished nationally in the \u003ci\u003eNew Liberty\u003c\/i\u003e in the late 40s. It also thwarted the young author's designs on the editorship of the \u003ci\u003eUndergrad\u003c\/i\u003e because of his clear moral unsuitability for such an august position. (This is doubtful, because the \u003ci\u003eUndergrad\u003c\/i\u003e eventually came to be edited, thirty years later, by PQL publisher Tim Inkster.) 'The Box Social' is remarkable, not only that it introduced the theme of date rape to Canadian literature some thirty years before the phrase was coined, but also that it is told from Sylvia's point of view, and yet again that it ends with one of the quietest lines of literary vitriol imaginable ... ' ''I hated you so much,'' she said softly.'\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIf Alice Munro has put the sexually awakening female under glass in \u003ci\u003eLives of Girls and Women\u003c\/i\u003e, then \u003ci\u003eThe Box Social\u003c\/i\u003e could just as easily have been titled \u003ci\u003eLives of Boys and Men\u003c\/i\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn 'The Bully', the brutality of what passes for etiquette in secondary school is contrasted with the simpler life of the farm personified in Noreen who drops grain in the shape of letters to feed her chickens — 'so that when the hens ate the grain they were forced to spell out Noreen's initials or to form a cross and circle. There were just enough hens to make this rather an interesting game. Sometimes, I know, Noreen spelled out whole sentences in this way, a letter or two each night, and I often wondered to whom she was writing up in the sky.' 'The Bully' was included in \u003ci\u003eThe New Oxford Book of Canadian Short Stories\u003c\/i\u003e edited by Margaret Atwood and Robert Weaver.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe young Margaret Atwood first encountered 'The Bully' as an undergraduate. She read the story, oddly enough, in an anthology edited by Robert Weaver, and the experience was apparently seminal to her own development as a writer of fiction ...\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Porcupine's Quill, Incorporated","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47032769675504,"sku":"9780889841734","price":12.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/9780889841734_p0.jpg?v=1763859091","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/9780889841734","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}