No Gravity

"Zero Gravity" is Toronto author Sharon English's second collection of short stories. The book is rooted in Vancouver, with side trips to British Columbia's Kootenay mountains, Montreal and Delphi, Greece. English's characters lead accelerated lives only to be seized by spiritual emptiness. Their attempts to escape -- by joining, by quitting, by falling in and out of love -- make for funny, insightful and intense reading. The author presents a fly's-eye view of urban experience, coming at city life from multiple angles that unite, as the book progresses, into a vivid experience of isolation and adaptation. The book's unusual imagery and controlled prose deliver an edgy and anxious commentary on a new century.