Skip to main content

Carol Shields

Carol Shields was the author of eight novels, including the bestselling Unless, and three collections of short stories. She received the Orange Prize for Larry’s Party and the Pulitzer Prize for The Stone Diaries. She died on July 16, 2003, after a protracted battle with cancer. In February, Fourth Estate will publish her Collected Stories, including her last story, “Segue,” published here for the first time in the United States. The story appears here accompanied by a short introduction by Shields’s close friend Margaret Atwood.

Author

Segue

Winter 2005 | Fiction

Something is always saying to me: Be plain. Be clear. But then something else interferes and unjoints my good intentions. Max and I were out yesterday morning, Sunday, a simple enough errand in our neighborhood. We "sallied forth" to buy a loaf of [...]