AN AMATEUR'S GUIDE TO THE NIGHT: Stories

by Mary Robison ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 1, 1983

Another wispy batch of hip, deadpan, it's-cute-to-be-crazy stories from the author of Days and the novel Oh!--with vague grim undercurrents beneath the bright little pop-artish sketches of disaffected youngish people. Only one story, one of the few to focus on a would-be grownup, is a fully realized example of Robison's shiny-surface/dark-implication technique: the ""Coach"" is a high-school football coach now about to begin his first college job--and though the nearly all-dialogue story shrinks from analysis, connections bubble up throughout. . . between the coach's frail professional ambitions and his increasing alienation from wife-and-daughter (with more than a hint of incestuous frustration). Elsewhere, however, this oblique approach often seems more precious and lazy than artful: a brother and sister (""The Wellman Twins"") dancing around their mutual sexual attraction; a daughter who double-dates with Mom, faintly shadowed by long-gone Dad; a distraught youth seeking solace from his shaky aunt; an unwed pregnant woman of 36 who, unlike her frustrated failure-brother, accepts a second-rate sort of life. (""That's the whole difference between us--I don't torture myself by going around with people who are smart."") Plus--in very short-takes--glimpses of odd-couple relationships, with one or two engaging/curious touches. As in her previous work, Robison registers as a genuine talent who has yet to find the form or focus she needs; and this is flat, coy, mannered work for the most part--with only a little of the comic flair that gave Oh! its one-dimensional allure.

Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1983

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Knopf

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1983

Categories: FICTION