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This debut collection of short stories sat around for quite a few days before I started to read it. I was not drawn to the title and, even after reading from cover to cover, am at a loss to figure out what it means. However, this does not detract from the fact that Pasha Malla is a writer of considerable talent. That talent has already been recognized by McSweeney's and other journals, and in several prize nominations.

The stories in the Toronto writer's The Withdrawal Method are an astonishing and bizarre mix of styles, voices and locales, from Vienna in 1755 to a rather scary future Niagara Falls, where the falls have dried up and the city is practically a ghost town, with only remnants of its former resort-oriented, honeymoon-holiday glory.

• The Withdrawal Method, by Pasha Malla, Anansi, 319 pages, $29.95

The story that focuses on the dried-up falls, Being Like Bulls, is wonderfully descriptive. David, the protagonist, says of the tourist shop that he still looks after: "Simply put, the place was a museum of crap." Later, reminiscing, he says, "You could just imagine them parading around back home in their new duds like they were something special, someone worldly. But we sold the same things to everyone. Each tourist who came to the Falls had the same experience: pay too much for parking, look at the water, buy something shitty, load back onto your chartered bus, and go home. There was nothing special about it."

The stories told from a child's point of view or which present children as major characters are especially well written. Malla has an extraordinary gift for being able to enter the mind of a child without the obvious intrusion of the story being told by an adult. This is no mean feat, since it is often easier to be an adult narrator than a child observer, such as the girl who remains nameless in Pushing Oceans In and Pulling Oceans Out. I especially enjoyed this story. It is filled with a great deal of compassion for the characters, and no affectation whatsoever.

“ Malla has an excellent handle on the young and the hip, but none of it comes across as 'flip' ”

This extraordinary ability is equally divided between genders. Dizzy When You Look Down In is another example, this time from a boy's viewpoint. I know practically nothing about basketball, but the descriptions of the game are exceptional. The language is smooth, but the overall sense is motion and action, with pathos thrown in. Basketball fans should appreciate this story immensely, and I'm equally convinced that I would have got more out of it had I more knowledge of the game.

Another aspect of this ability to write from a young person's perspective is how contemporary the language is. Malla has an excellent handle on the young and the hip, but none of it comes across as "flip." I believe most writers do include autobiographical aspects in their work and in that regard the 30-year-old Malla has an edge. Perhaps these aspects are parallels with his own life, but whatever they are they are written in a language that is fresh and imbued with great feeling.

One of the longer stories in the collection and one of my favourites is The Love Life of the Automaton Turk. Perhaps it is the historical aspect that appealed, maybe the fact the Automaton Turk was in fact real, but the concept of taking real historical characters and giving them another life, or at least inventing aspects of their life that may or may not be true, is engaging. Malla does this exceptionally well in this story, which, unlike some of the others, is written in more traditional narrative style. Even so, the writing is still smooth, the language brilliant and the characters well drawn. This quote from the story clarifies this ability of Malla's: "Languages are just equations of one another - it's all a matter of figuring out what best equals what."

The last story, When Jacques Cousteau Gave Pablo Picasso a Piece of Black Coral, is a small and shining gem. It truly is a "short" story that encapsulates all the fine points of Malla's talent. Pasha Malla is an impressive young voice that gives one hope for a future of new Canadian writing talent to shine on the horizon.

Alma Lee was the former and founding artistic director of the Vancouver International Writers and Readers Festival.

Quotable

Dad came up with his nickname one day down at the Pinery. I'd shown my little brother how spinning in place could make the world swim up and away from you. He'd loved it. Mom and Dad and I watched him all afternoon twirling circles with his arms out until he couldn't twirl any more, staggering down the beach and trying to make the water before he fell down. I'd been seven, he'd been five, and all the way home in the back seat he was Dizzy, and then it came to school with him that Monday, and that's who he's been ever since.

From Dizzy When You Look Down In