MR. RIGHT IS DEAD

This is a sextet, a novella and five short stories; all of them have a cocktail sophistication and about two of the stories are just barely canape sized; most of them deal in a worldly, sad, shrewd and sometimes very amusing way with girls who haven't found the best of everything even though they have learned (the hard way) a great deal about life and love, or its illusion, and loneliness. The title novella is about a ""whore with a heart of gold"" who manages to retain a tremendous resilience throughout her mobile experiences as told by another who didn't inherit her ""survival kit""; Love Me, Love My Dog is almost Dahliesque; Trompe L'oeil is a chilling vagary; and the longest of the shorter pieces, Rima The Bird Girl is about a girl who assumes a different identity in each affair to become each man's dream of love, while- in so doing- destroying its reality.... Glossy they are, expectedly, but they have, unexpectedly, a sharpness, a savvy which is not to be underestimated or undervalued. Nor is the market.