ABSTRACT
Linguistic adroitness, honesty and humour are Simpson's most appreciated qualities, together with a deep understanding of "the dilemma of women struggling to carve out meaningful lives in a world structured to benefit men". Simpson's concern about time, both diegetic and real, is one of the reasons for her preference for the short story. She frequently recognises, not without a seeming tinge of regret, that "novels always seem best when they're dealing with time. As Emma Young has convincingly argued, Simpson's work is also a child of its time and reflects the tensions between the feminist discourses present at the turn of the millennium, between second- and third-wave feminism. Simpson's stories represent the female, and especially maternal, subjectivity by means of different narrative strategies. In order to be able to transcend established discursive practices, Simpson also engages in the re-metaphorisation of certain domains that have been stigmatised by patriarchal discourses.
