Astrid, Aghast is the sixth book by Ottawa-area writer Ian Roy, his third collection of short stories. It’s a substantial volume containing thirty stories, a beautiful edition from Gaspereau Press, made to feel all the more substantial by the Zephyr Antique Laid stock it is printed on. The book is given a classic feel, which fits perfectly with the stories within.
This is a collection that at once feels like fables told across the ages and tall tales told at your local watering hole. Each piece feels lived-in, like something overheard or spread through the grapevine. Some of these characters are outlandish or eccentric, but in the way that a neighbour or crazy uncle can be. Their roots are deep in the dirt of our world, even if they seem, at times, almost supernatural.
This is a collection that at once feels like fables told across the ages and tall tales told at your local watering hole.
The second story, “Big Yellow Taxi,” like other pieces in the collection, serves as an interesting study of gender and the male gaze, of a not-quite-incel cab driver whose fantasizing about women might possibly get him killed. The cabbie keeps a recording of the eponymous Joni Mitchell classic at the ready, a test for his female passengers, for if they respond to the song in what he deems the correct way, they might be his soulmate. His Freudian obsession with the song stems from memories of listening to it with his mother. One night, he picks up the wrong three passengers and agrees to take them to a party outside of the city. A knife is presented and his life is threatened, yet he seems unable to peel himself away from his romantic delusions. So strongly do his fantasies tie him to his imagined safe space that they override his survival instinct, he’s a romantic so hopeless as to be deemed delusional.
The fifth story, “I’m Gonna Fly,” puts two men at a bar, one of whom claims he can fly. It begins with one telling the other the story about the boy who could fly (a nod of sorts to Roy’s novel, The Girl Who Could Fly) and ends with the claim that he himself was that very boy. After more drinks and a wager, he sets out to prove he can fly. The story is not quite Denis Johnson in tone, but plumbs the same territory while being wholly original.
“The White Album,” a story that spans only a single paragraph, serves as the figurative iceberg in fiction. Very little is said, but so much lies beneath the surface. A woman is leaving her partner as he sits and watches, telling her to take whatever she wants. The only time he flinches is when she grabs some records from his collection. She makes a final, passionate, yet doomed plea to save the relationship. Unfortunately, her ex-partner can’t bring himself to feel deeply enough.
A woman is leaving her partner as he sits and watches, telling her to take whatever she wants. The only time he flinches is when she grabs some records from his collection.
Themes of loneliness pervade these stories and the primal desire to be seen by those around us. Roy’s finely honed ability to paint the varying shades of melancholy creates a depth to these stories in very few words. The thirty stories in this collection could serve as a syllabus for a creative writing course in the art of short story writing.
Astrid, Aghast is the kind of collection that every serious writer of fiction wants to produce at least once in their career, and a collection that every serious reader of fiction should put on their shelf, mixed in with The Collected Stories of John Cheever, The Interpreter of Maladies, Good Country People and Jesus’s Son. These stories manage an impressive economy of words while still conveying flights of fancy, which is not an easy task. Roy is a short story writer of the highest calibre, and this collection stands as a testament to his skill.
Roy is a short story writer of the highest calibre, and this collection stands as a testament to his skill.
Ian Roy is the author of six books, including the short story collection, People Leaving, which was short-listed for both the City of Ottawa Book Award and the Upper Canada Writers’ Craft Award. His other books include a collaborative art-book (The Longest Winter), a poetry collection (Red Bird), another story collection (Meticulous, Sad and Lonely), and a novel for children called The Girl Who Could Fly. Ian’s most recent book, Astrid, Aghast, is a collection of stories published by Gaspereau Press in 2026. Ian’s essays, poems, and stories have appeared in numerous magazines and journals, including The Antigonish Review, Arc, Geist, Long Con Magazine, Maisonneuve, and The New Quarterly. His essay, “Have a Good Life, originally published in The New Quarterly, was included in The Best Canadian Essays 2026 anthology. Ian lives in Canada.
Publisher: Gaspereau Press (June 3, 2026)
Paperback: 6″ x 9″ | 208 pages
ISBN: 9781554472819
Jeff Dupuis is a writer and editor living in Toronto. He is the author of The Creature X Mystery novels and numerous short stories, which have been published in The Ex-Puritan and The Temz Review among others. Jeff is the editor, alongside A.G. Pasquella, of the anthology Devouring Tomorrow: Fiction from the Future of Food, which will be published in 2025 by Dundurn Press.
