Wormwood, a collection of ten stories by one of the masters of the form, revolves around the title fiction. It is a vision of Nature so altered and affected by Man that even the animal world is prey to insanity. All the stories touch — through an astonishing range of characters; male and female, young and old, sophisticated and ignorant — on human lives which reflect the disintegration of our time.
Much of the collection involves the Prairies and Southern Ontario. Wormwood itself — a story seen through the eyes of a trapped animal — is set on the West Coast of Vancouver Island. But interwoven with these Canadian realities is a parallel world, shifting from Melanesia to Northern Ireland, Guatemala and, in the final, apocalyptic evocation of Lilith, Eve’s predecessor, into mythic territory common to us all.
Almost every story in Wormwood implies a future that will be changed from within. Hope is the hardest-won value in Seán Virgo’s world, but this book is about hope.
Ten stories by “a writer at the peak of his form.”