PENGUIN BOOKS

THE ORANGE FISH

Carol Shields’ critically acclaimed novel The Stone Diaries won the 1995 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. The Stone Diaries also won the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Governor General’s Award of Canada as well as being nominated for the Booker Prize. Her other books include Dressing up for the Carnival, Larry’s Party, Happenstance, The Republic of Love, Swann, The Orange Fish, Various Miracles, Small Ceremonies (which won the Canadian Authors’ Association Award for Fiction), and The Box Garden. Shields was born and raised in Chicago and now lives in Winnipeg.

Title Page

Dedication

For Joan and Shad and Mary Lou

Copyright Page

PENGUIN BOOKS
Published by the Penguin Group
Penguin Books USA Inc.,
375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, U.S.A.

Penguin Books Ltd, 27 Wrights Lane, London W8 5TZ, England
Penguin Books Australia Ltd, Ringwood, Victoria, Australia
Penguin Books Canada Ltd, 10 Alcorn Avenue,
Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4V 3B2
Penguin Books (N.Z.) Ltd, 182-190 Wairau Road,
Auckland 10, New Zealand
Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices:
Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England

First published in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited 1989
First published in the United States of America
by Viking Penguin, a division of Penguin Books USA Inc., 1990
Published in Penguin Books 1992

Copyright © Carol Shields, 1989

“The Orange Fish” and “Times of Sickness and Health” first appeared in A Room of One’s Own; “Today Is the Day” as “Close Observation” and “Good Manners” in The WEat Coast REview; “Hinterland” and “Block Out” in Prairie Fire; “Family Secrets” in Prism International; “Fuel for the Fire” in Border Crosgings; and “Milk Bread

Beer Ice” in Saturday Night.

PUBLISHER’S NOTE

These stories are works of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

eISBN : 978-1-101-17394-7

I. Title.
PR9199.3.S514077 1990
813’.54—de20 89-40672

The Orange Fish

The Orange Fish

Like others of my generation I am devoted to food, money, and sex; but I have an ulcer and have been unhappily married to Lois-Ann, a lawyer, for twelve years. As you might guess, we are both fearful of aging. Recently Lois-Ann showed me an article she had clipped from the newspaper, a profile of a well-known television actress who was described as being “deep in her thirties.”

“That’s what we are,” Lois-Ann said sadly, “deep in our thirties.” She looked at me from behind a lens of tears.