WITH OR WITHOUT

by Charles Dickinson ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 29, 1987

At their best, Dickinson's deceptively simple stories are as charming and poignant as his warmhearted novels, Waltz in Marathon (1983) and Crows (1985). And at his worst, Dickinson sounds a lot like the trendier voices in contemporary fiction. Characters from a typical Ann Beattie story wander into ""Risk,"" where, playing the game of that name, two of them sublimate and reveal their problems, mostly predictable worries about adultery. And the blue-collar couple who meet on a picket line in ""A Night In The Garden"" recall Raymond Carver's inarticulate working-class lovers. But the less self-consciously proletarian fictions collected here reveal more about the nature of work, and more about the sources of Dickinson's often singular art, than the more fashionable pieces do. ""My Livelihood,"" for example, is an engaging monologue by an unemployed father of two who's not all that concerned about his predicament, since, unlike his wife's family of carpenters, he grew up to despise labor, preferring now to hustle golf--a form of play at its insouciant best. In ""Jinx,"" a hapless fellow who's putting his wife through a Master's degree in Actuarial Science by hauling garbage learns one day how to turn his liability--all his co-workers fear the trouble that seems to follow him--into a most lucrative asset. A wonderful pair of stories with a juvenescent point of view (""Sofa Art"" and ""The Fire"") displays an unusual feel for the psychological complexities of boys at play. And two previously unpublished pieces (""Black Bart"" and ""With Or Without""), both about good, solid people having a tough time getting by, provide a strong finish to an uneven collection. Dickinson's quiet prose often manages to transform the little disturbances of man into the most necessary of fictions--modest tales of everyday desperation and affirmation.

Pub Date: April 29, 1987

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Knopf

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 1987

Categories: FICTION