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"HOMELY GIRL, A LIFE and Other Stories" by Arthur Miller

"HOMELY GIRL, A LIFE and Other Stories"

By

Pub Date: Oct. 1st, 1995
ISBN: 0140252797
Publisher: Viking

Three of the celebrated dramatist's short stories, collected in a small volume to be published on Miller's 80th birthday, together with a revised Viking Portable volume and other reissues. Both ""Fame,"" a wry vignette about a newly successful playwright dodging it, and ""Fitter's Night,"" whose industrial setting and ramshackle plot show its links with Miller's plays ""All My Sons"" and ""A View From the Bridge,"" are reprinted from his story collection I Don't Need You Anymore (1968). The title piece, previously published in a 1992 limited edition, shows its author's trademark of intensive character scrutiny and discursive, often stilted social commentary. It's the story of a plain woman who achieves self-respect and fulfillment by managing to say ""Fuck the future"" to her strident socialist husband and ignore the expectations--and limitations--others impose on her. It's an agreeable fiction, but a very slight addition to the Miller canon.