Varied and risky, with brilliances and blunders on an occasional basis.
Seventeen stories—some of them false starts, some disguised plays, some genuinely elegant pieces—from the veteran playwright, actor, and Pulitzer-winner.
Shepard has written 45 plays and one previous story collection (Cruising Paradise, 1996). It tends to show. It’s as though he’s not always sure what to do with the freedom of prose—there’s an uncertainty over how to wade into a character’s mind without slipping into the voice one might use on stage. The best pieces here are the first (“The Remedy Man”), whose highly aggressive horse-breaking main character serves as contrast to those with only lightweight understandings of Shepard’s country in fiction such as The Horse Whisperer; and “An Unfair Question,” which flirts with Chekhov’s rule about guns and the third act; and the title story, about two old men and housemates whose friendship is challenged when their favorite Denny’s waitress chooses to bestow affections on only one of them. Fine portraits of teenagers—the particular timbre of their voices—come in stories (“Berlin Wall Piece,” “The Company’s Interest”) that nevertheless fail to add up to much. Tales that are focused primarily on a single conversation can be haunting, as in “The Door to Women,” in which a grandfather tries to educate a grandson who knows more than the older man thinks, while two tales set around conversations (“Betty’s Cats,” “It Wasn’t Proust”) are simply one-act plays in disguise, the first about an elderly woman who doesn’t want to get rid of her cats, the second, more significant and complete, about a man relating an absurd adventure in France to convince his mysterious listener not to go there herself. Shepard flirts with form: one story, “Tinnitus,” is composed entirely of voice-mail messages, and in another (“Living the Sign”) a mysterious narrator unearths the source of a scrap of Zen-style wisdom found on the wall of an even stranger chicken shop.
Varied and risky, with brilliances and blunders on an occasional basis.Pub Date: Oct. 22, 2002
ISBN: 0-375-40505-4
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2002
These letters from some important executive Down Below, to one of the junior devils here on earth, whose job is to corrupt mortals, are witty and written in a breezy style seldom found in religious literature. The author quotes Luther, who said: "The best way to drive out the devil, if he will not yield to texts of Scripture, is to jeer and flout him, for he cannot bear scorn." This the author does most successfully, for by presenting some of our modern and not-so-modern beliefs as emanating from the devil's headquarters, he succeeds in making his reader feel like an ass for ever having believed in such ideas. This kind of presentation gives the author a tremendous advantage over the reader, however, for the more timid reader may feel a sense of guilt after putting down this book. It is a clever book, and for the clever reader, rather than the too-earnest soul.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1942
ISBN: 0060652934
Page Count: 53
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 17, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1943
Hoffman (The Red Garden, 2011, etc.) births literature from tragedy: the destruction of Jerusalem's Temple, the siege of Masada and the loss of Zion.
This is a feminist tale, a story of strong, intelligent women wedded to destiny by love and sacrifice. Told in four parts, the first comes from Yael, daughter of Yosef bar Elhanan, a Sicarii Zealot assassin, rejected by her father because of her mother's death in childbirth. It is 70 CE, and the Temple is destroyed. Yael, her father, and another Sicarii assassin, Jachim ben Simon, and his family flee Jerusalem. Hoffman's research renders the ancient world real as the group treks into Judea's desert, where they encounter Essenes, search for sustenance and burn under the sun. There too Jachim and Yael begin a tragic love affair. At Masada, Yael is sent to work in the dovecote, gathering eggs and fertilizer. She meets Shirah, her daughters, and Revka, who narrates part two. Revka's husband was killed when Romans sacked their village. Later, her daughter was murdered. At Masada, caring for grandsons turned mute by tragedy, Revka worries over her scholarly son-in-law, Yoav, now consumed by vengeance. Aziza, daughter of Shirah, carries the story onward. Born out of wedlock, Aziza grew up in Moab, among the people of the blue tunic. Her passion and curse is that she was raised as a warrior by her foster father. In part four, Shirah tells of her Alexandrian youth, the cherished daughter of a consort of the high priests. Shirah is a keshaphim, a woman of amulets, spells and medicine, and a woman connected to Shechinah, the feminine aspect of God. The women are irretrievably bound to Eleazar ben Ya'ir, Masada's charismatic leader; Amram, Yael's brother; and Yoav, Aziza's companion and protector in battle. The plot is intriguingly complex, with only a single element unresolved. An enthralling tale rendered with consummate literary skill.
Pub Date: Oct. 4, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-4516-1747-4
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: April 5, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2011
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