Content as I am these days, those questions and their answers no longer interest me. What does is the potential inherent in recognizing the finer details, the shapes and patterns of my desire. There is real heroism in Mootoo's insistence on becoming herself in the face of all cultural opposition, and much to be admired in her current self-possession. Shields recounts the erotic history of Ann, a middle-aged, divorced woman who has just undergone chemotherapy for breast cancer. The insistent, lifeward force of desire pulses like a current through Ann's difficult life, leavening the inevitable pain of living with a subversive hope.
Shields knows even more than the others that desire is virtually impossible to talk about.
Her response is to tell a story infused with desire, illustrating the way it both feeds and consumes us, and somehow drives us forward. In speaking of desire and all its complications and mysteries, it is as if she has discovered the wellspring of life itself. Her poetry has appeared in Prism International and Room of One's Own . She has just finished her first novel, A Singing Tree.