… Standing at an Angle to My Age was a vigorous read for me. I had the fun of churning up allusions, laughing, reading of characters both funny and not, and witnessing the many ways one can stand in a strange place while fitting in or standing out. I hope Bridgman continues to produce this unique kind of work. A substantial number of these tales are award-winning and rightfully so…

… This collection of stories takes the reader from Canada’s west coast to the British Isles. Bridgman does not rest too comfortably in any one form or style; he pushes himself to experiment with perspective, chronology and length … Some readers will relate to Bridgman as a fellow fan of modernism, and so will embrace a text peppered with modernist allusions. Others will be drawn in by his carefully crafted relationships. Any reader will savour the occasions when Bridgman pushes aside heavy detail and lingers in moments of pain, love, and resolve…  (To read the entire review, click here.)

… Of P.W. Bridgman’s terse mastery of the short story there is no doubt … This is reading that sneaks up on the reader, leaving [him/her] reeling in its wake with just enough sensibility to think hard upon the content…  (To read the entire review, click here.)

… [L]anguage as taut as an Emily Dickinson poem … The stories in Standing at an Angle to My Age, while sometimes set abroad, are nonetheless markedly Canadian, some with specifically B.C. settings and references. They inhabit a wide range of genres and modes, but are distinguished by the steady craft of an elegant literary stylist.  Each piece is an experiment and P.W. Bridgman is a writer of exceptional talent…  (To read the entire review, turn to page 11 of the November 2013 issue — the Douglas Coupland issue — of B.C. Bookworld accessible online via this link.)

… The prose is spare, each word chosen with surgical precision.  The enigmatic Bridgman knows how to craft a sentence … [I]n the space of a page and a half [one of the flash fiction pieces] gives an Alice Munro-like spark of insight capturing a tiny moment, giving a small ping of epiphany…  (To read the entire review, click here.)

…In Standing at an Angle to My Age, his debut collection of short fiction, P.W. Bridgman reveals himself as a strong new voice in Canadian literature. The stories in this collection cover vast ground; Bridgman takes the reader back and forth in time and across the Atlantic. From Ireland to Canada to Great Britain, from the present day to the Second World War, Bridgman renders each setting skilfully, both through physical detail and the nuances of each place and time’s characters and speech…