Random Illuminations: Conversations with Carol Shields

by Eleanor Wachtel

A great conversation can offer insight into the hearts and minds of its participants. In this intimate, wide-ranging collection of conversations (and some correspondence), writer-broadcaster Eleanor Wachtel and her friend, author Carol Shields, touch on both the personal and the professional. Eleanor Wachtel first met Carol Shields in 1980; her first interview with Carol occurred in 1987, following the publication of Swann: A Mystery . They soon became...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0864925018
• ISBN13: 9780864925015
• Release Date: September 2007
• Publisher: Goose Lane Editions
• Length: 184 Pages
• Weight: 0.65 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 5.9" x 8.6"

Customer Reviews

Some last words from Carol Shields

When Carol Shields died in 2003, one of the finest voices speaking for the luminosity of ordinary human life was silenced. Hearing that voice again in these interviews reminds me once more of Shields' great empathy for and sensitivity to the average person's life journey, a journey she always rendered with kindness, humor, and keen insight in her novels. Wachtel is an excellent interviewer, asking good, focused questions rather than the usual fluff too often encountered in the interview format. She also provides us with a few letters written to her by Shields. If we cannot have another Shields novel, these interviews provide us with something almost as gratifying.