Nicholas Ruddock follows his 2010 debut novel, The Parabolist (which was nominated for the Toronto Book Awards and an Arthur Ellis Award), with a collection of linked stories set in and around St. John’s. There are 25 pieces in the collection, 14 of which are fully developed stories written in a folksy, aw-shucks style reminiscent of 1950s romances. These are interspersed with 11 vignettes, all of which take the form of single, heavily punctuated run-on sentences that read like dreamy prose poems.

The selections weave back and forth in time, with numerous characters reappearing in varying capacities: someone mentioned in passing in one story often appears as the focal point in another. Ruddock gives his cast cutesy names like Queenie Cluett, Kiziah Buffett, Otto Bond, and Meta May Grandy, a decision that suits the collection’s down-home rural feel, but quickly becomes cloying. By the time Cyril Savoury and Justin Peach appear, the reader runs the risk of being able to taste the townsfolk.

The stories are narrated in the third person, while the vignettes vary between third and first. The standout is “How Eunice Got Her Baby,” which was included in the 2007 Journey Prize anthology and subsequently made into a short film narrated by Gordon Pinsent. A good portion of the stories detail how two characters become romantically involved or, as the collection’s title suggests, how someone comes to be a parent. Others, such as “Scenario 2 a.m.” and the title story, involve situations that may not even have taken place, but may instead be a character’s arbitrary imaginings. The overall effect is that the narrative threads often feel insubstantial, like overtures to something grander that’s left unrealized.

How Loveta Got Her Baby deals with themes of renewal and interconnectedness by demonstrating how our smallest gestures and fleeting decisions can affect the lives of others in surprisingly significant ways. Ruddock’s treatment of these themes, however, is undermined by his focus on preludes: over and over, the reader is treated to how an event came to pass, but is left to wonder “and then what?” The overall feel is that of a series of anecdotes that are all cause and no consequence.