UNEXPECTED FICTIONS: NEW ICELANDIC CANADIAN WRITING Edited by Kristjana Gunnars Winnipeg, Turnstone Press, 1989. 98pp, paper, $10.95 ISBN 0-88801-144-X. CIP Adult/Secondary Reviewed by Katheryn Broughton. Volume 18 Number 1 1990 January In her introduction to this entertain­ing, rather low-key collection, the editor states that the stories are "a kind of window into the Icelandic Canadian mind, life and culture." Further on, she says paradoxically that "in most stories the sensibility is decidedly mainstream Canadian." Authors include established writers such as W.D. Valgardson, David Arnason and Betty Jane Wylie as well as six other newer voices. Four were born and raised in Gimli, Manitoba, a small Icelandic farming and fishing commu­nity on Lake Winnipeg. There is considerable variety in theme and in character. For example, a middle-aged man advertises for a companion but lacks the courage to keep a date ("Shall I Compare Thee"), a young Canadian couple view with emotion the battlefields in France where Canadians died in World War I ("Night Train to Barcelona"), a village bag lady's sad story is finally told to a young man who found her quite repulsive in his childhood ("In the Garden"), and a youngster acquires a rather bizarre education from the brochures supplied by his uncle in his otherwise modem bathroom ("The Man Who Was Always Running out of Toilet Paper"). A good evening's entertainment. Recommended. Katheryn Broughton, Thornhill, Ont.