Social Anxiety

Dept: Whether Melanie is mentally ill or just troubled would depend on who you ask. She holds down a job, but her social anxiety and petty fibbing are debilitating. That s Very Observant of You is both the story s title and the snide comment from a waiter that breaks her from her shell. The closing dialogue largely an indignant burst of monologue from Melanie rounds the tale off smartly, according to Globe and Mail. In Maybe You Should Get Back Here , Max and Nadia share a bed. With them lives Chris, Max s old college roommate. They cook and eat and watch TV together, tossing out their usual affectionate or testy sarcasms. Lately, a household shift is occurring or is Max just imagining it? He forces a change. The premise is not surprising here, but Hayes s storytelling, eschewing closure, finally is and next up is The Maladjusted , offering a completely convincing journey into manageable mental illness. Among his anti-social eccentricities, Mike collects discarded furniture, fashioning it into elaborate tunnels and mazes in his apartment as a challenge to his social worker. No mental slouch, Mike engages in Kantian thought experiments and discovers a talent for chess that proves worth developing. Green Jerseys filters a Toronto Greek immigrant s work as a teaching assistant through a sports metaphor. Gus s school time makes for some of his happiest moments, and also his most frustrating; his English fluency is shaky while his teaching quirks rub superiors the wrong way. He comes to realize that, in the guise of career development, his boss is pushing him out. Hayes doesn t take sides. The story s dilemmas flow inevitably from its deft grappling with human foibles. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.