It doesn’t always happen, but whenever the commonplace and the sublime pair here, the result is absorbing.
Sly digs at society’s failings alternate with roundhouse swats while beauty and mystery hover nearby, in a wide-ranging collection of 18 stories by acclaimed British novelist Dunmore (The Siege, 2002; etc.).
The title piece, short and sweet, offers a flinty-eyed glimpse into the life of an über-model coming publicly undone, as she ignores the mantras of her personal trainer at a fête in her honor and succumbs to the creamy blandishments of her favorite, long-denied dessert. There’s more heft to “Leonardo, Michelangelo, Superstork,” a futuristic tale of government-controlled pregnancy and neighborhood subversives—in this case, a couple who conceive the old-fashioned way and are forced to flee for their lives after being exposed. Dunmore also slightly warps reality in “Be Vigilant, Rejoice, Eat Plenty,” which shows a parking meter dispensing good advice to a harried woman on her way to an appointment with her ex to argue about his dwindling support of their child. These stories pale, however, next to the normalcy and romantic subtlety of “My Polish Teacher’s Tie,” which involves a modest half-Polish school cafeteria worker and her pen pal, a poet and teacher from Poland who comes to England for a visit. Similarly engrossing are three pieces featuring a character named Ulli, a sort of Everywoman who experiences life on the edge and love in the afternoon spiked with swift, riveting turns. In “The Icon Room,” Ulli’s chance encounter with an unkempt, compelling lover of poetry leads her from a tearoom to another chamber throbbing with the color and intensity of icon paintings displayed floor to ceiling; she’s so unnerved and enraptured that she is more than accepting of what follows.
It doesn’t always happen, but whenever the commonplace and the sublime pair here, the result is absorbing.Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-8021-1733-3
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Grove
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2002
It's being called a novel, but it is more a hybrid: short-stories/essays/confessions about the Vietnam War—the subject that O'Brien reasonably comes back to with every book. Some of these stories/memoirs are very good in their starkness and factualness: the title piece, about what a foot soldier actually has on him (weights included) at any given time, lends a palpability that makes the emotional freight (fear, horror, guilt) correspond superbly. Maybe the most moving piece here is "On The Rainy River," about a draftee's ambivalence about going, and how he decided to go: "I would go to war—I would kill and maybe die—because I was embarrassed not to." But so much else is so structurally coy that real effects are muted and disadvantaged: O'Brien is writing a book more about earnestness than about war, and the peekaboos of this isn't really me but of course it truly is serve no true purpose. They make this an annoyingly arty book, hiding more than not behind Hemingwayesque time-signatures and puerile repetitions about war (and memory and everything else, for that matter) being hell and heaven both. A disappointment.
Pub Date: March 28, 1990
ISBN: 0618706410
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: Oct. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1990
SEEN & HEARD
IN THE NEWS
SEEN & HEARD
Visionary speculative stories that will change the way readers see themselves and the world around them: This book delivers...
Exploring humankind's place in the universe and the nature of humanity, many of the stories in this stellar collection focus on how technological advances can impact humanity’s evolutionary journey.
Chiang's (Stories of Your Life and Others, 2002) second collection begins with an instant classic, “The Merchant and the Alchemist’s Gate,” which won Hugo and Nebula awards for Best Novelette in 2008. A time-travel fantasy set largely in ancient Baghdad, the story follows fabric merchant Fuwaad ibn Abbas after he meets an alchemist who has crafted what is essentially a time portal. After hearing life-changing stories about others who have used the portal, he decides to go back in time to try to right a terrible wrong—and realizes, too late, that nothing can erase the past. Other standout selections include “The Lifecycle of Software Objects,” a story about a software tester who, over the course of a decade, struggles to keep a sentient digital entity alive; “The Great Silence,” which brilliantly questions the theory that humankind is the only intelligent race in the universe; and “Dacey’s Patent Automatic Nanny,” which chronicles the consequences of machines raising human children. But arguably the most profound story is "Exhalation" (which won the 2009 Hugo Award for Best Short Story), a heart-rending message and warning from a scientist of a highly advanced, but now extinct, race of mechanical beings from another universe. Although the being theorizes that all life will die when the universes reach “equilibrium,” its parting advice will resonate with everyone: “Contemplate the marvel that is existence, and rejoice that you are able to do so.”
Visionary speculative stories that will change the way readers see themselves and the world around them: This book delivers in a big way.Pub Date: May 8, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-101-94788-3
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Feb. 16, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
