Category Archives: REVIEWS

I do like Raymond Carver’s work and so I decided to start on this a little earlier, found it online and printed it out (some things don’t change–it’s easier to mark and read, though I may try sticking it into … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Rereading this for class, slower, more carefully.  I still don’t particularly care for it, but that doesn’t matter because there are some good things here to be found. The first segment, Belmont Harbor, has a basic story of John waking … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Was just this minute reading Lonnie Ann’s journal review on this story and about to click in a comment, but… My husband walks in from the garage and asks me a question.  "What did you say?" I ask him "What … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Well, if you take out all the bad words this might go over with a third-grader.  I honestly can’t imagine a teenager reading this outside of required reading to find the literary value in it. Scott McCloud has some great … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Honestly, I find it hard to believe that just because it’s in cartoon form that young adults will accept the moral at the heart of the story: I see now that I create my own unhappiness.  The things that happen … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Not being a huge fan of comic books anymore, and not being real sympathetic to teenage angst even when I was one, John Porcellino’s Perfect Example is not going over well with me. Tired of the fuck and shit that … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Toasters/Pamela Painter: Yet another view of marital relationships, this one is unique in that it shows a set of characters watching another set of characters who we never see except through the eyes of the others.  There is action and … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Drawer/Rick Moody: One of my favs on the theme of the breakdown of relationships, this story has a nice was of mimicking reality in the tendency of people using metaphors for the real problems they have with each other.  The … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Nicaragua/Kirk Nesset: No comment. Parrot Talk/Kit Coyne Irwin: Nice opening, first person pov, placing the odd fact of parrots in the trees of Connecticut.  Very nicely done, the interweaving of a marital relationship suffering the effects of time against the … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Oliver’s Evolution/John Updike: Nice little story about a neglected child for whom life dishes out nothing but dregs.  He himself causes himself harm but eventually meets a girl in worse shape than he is who looks up to him.  They … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Justice–ABeginning/Grace Paley: Rather introspective of a woman who takes things very seriously.  Not a grand opening, but interesting enough and there is some nice imagery though it doesn’t really go anywhere within the story.  I’m not sure the whole thing … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Jumping ahead here a bit because I found this short-short absolutely delightful. Is it a story? Yes. A robber has a certain method of operation to snatch purses. Complication arises in the antagonist of 82 year-old Elisabeth Schroeder. Instead of … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Read a bunch; forgot to post on ’em. Blind Fish/Melanie Rae Thon: Sort of free form, not a real story but rather an essay, a parable that is full of symbolism and yet it cannot really be read as story … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Two good ‘uns; expecially Level by Keith Scribner which has much to teach about metaphor:The Cats in the Prison Recreation Hall/Lydia Davis: Presents the major conflict in the opening line: "the problem was the cats…" to focus the reader then … Continue reading → Continue reading →

How to Set a House on Fire/Stace Budzko: Not a riveting story, more like a weblog post geared towards the sarcastic attempt to be clever Currents/Hannah Bottomy: In a series of "before that(s)" the story works backwords through a disturbing … Continue reading → Continue reading →