It's hard not to be cynical about an anthology of proclaimed "masterpieces" that includes, without apology, a story by one of its editors; and although some may consider Carver a contemporary master, remarkably few other indisputable gems are brought together here—Flannery O'Connor's "A Good Man Is Hard to Find," Philip Roth's "Tire Conversion of the Jews" and Bernard Malamud's "The Magic Barrel." On the other hand, there are an overwhelming number of mediocre tales punctuating the 36 chosen by Carver and Scribner's editor Tom Jenks; even masterly writers such as Mark Helprin, Grace Paley, Leonard Michaels, and James Alan McPherson arc represented by some of their weakest work; and just plain awful stories come from Richard Brautigan and Vance Bourjaily ("1/3, 1/3, 1/3" and "The Amish Farmer"). The notion of a contemporary masterpiece, of course, is open lo question, but what seems more clear is that the editors here seem to feel they know what's hot in the current marketplace. The many avatars of recent realist and minimalist fiction (Bobbie Ann Mason, Richard Ford, Joy Williams, Tobias Wolff, Ann Beattie, Jayne Anne Phillips) join in full numbing force in these pages. Less generous explanations would seem to account for selections by John Gardner and Arthur Miller—the first having been Carver's teacher, and Miller's "The Misfits" coming from a volume reissued by Jenks at Scribners. In his alarmingly inarticulate introduction, Carver contends that he considers this a companion to Warren and Erskine's Short Story Masterpieces (1954). Inclusion in that earlier anthology ostensibly explains the absence now of John Cheever, Peter Taylor, and Eudora Welty, none of whose preeminence, it may be said, is threatened by this unnecessary slight. But however that may be, one hardly finds here yet the anthology deserving the mantel of its—and of that earlier—august title.
Pub Date: April 3, 1987
ISBN: 0440204232
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: Sept. 20, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 1987
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.
Life lessons.
Angie Malone, the youngest of a big, warm Italian-American family, returns to her Pacific Northwest hometown to wrestle with various midlife disappointments: her divorce, Papa’s death, a downturn in business at the family restaurant, and, above all, her childlessness. After several miscarriages, she, a successful ad exec, and husband Conlan, a reporter, befriended a pregnant young girl and planned to adopt her baby—and then the birth mother changed her mind. Angie and Conlan drifted apart and soon found they just didn’t love each other anymore. Metaphorically speaking, “her need for a child had been a high tide, an overwhelming force that drowned them. A year ago, she could have kicked to the surface but not now.” Sadder but wiser, Angie goes to work in the struggling family restaurant, bickering with Mama over updating the menu and replacing the ancient waitress. Soon, Angie befriends another young girl, Lauren Ribido, who’s eager to learn and desperately needs a job. Lauren’s family lives on the wrong side of the tracks, and her mother is a promiscuous alcoholic, but Angie knows nothing of this sad story and welcomes Lauren into the DeSaria family circle. The girl listens in, wide-eyed, as the sisters argue and make wisecracks and—gee-whiz—are actually nice to each other. Nothing at all like her relationship with her sluttish mother, who throws Lauren out when boyfriend David, en route to Stanford, gets her pregnant. Will Lauren, who’s just been accepted to USC, let Angie adopt her baby? Well, a bit of a twist at the end keeps things from becoming too predictable.
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.Pub Date: July 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-345-46750-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2004
An unusual and mesmerizing novel, gracefully written and deeply disturbing.
In her first novel to be published in English, South Korean writer Han divides a story about strange obsessions and metamorphosis into three parts, each with a distinct voice.
Yeong-hye and her husband drift through calm, unexceptional lives devoid of passion or anything that might disrupt their domestic routine until the day that Yeong-hye takes every piece of meat from the refrigerator, throws it away, and announces that she's become a vegetarian. Her decision is sudden and rigid, inexplicable to her family and a society where unconventional choices elicit distaste and concern that borders on fear. Yeong-hye tries to explain that she had a dream, a horrifying nightmare of bloody, intimate violence, and that's why she won't eat meat, but her husband and family remain perplexed and disturbed. As Yeong-hye sinks further into both nightmares and the conviction that she must transform herself into a different kind of being, her condition alters the lives of three members of her family—her husband, brother-in-law, and sister—forcing them to confront unsettling desires and the alarming possibility that even with the closest familiarity, people remain strangers. Each of these relatives claims a section of the novel, and each section is strikingly written, equally absorbing whether lush or emotionally bleak. The book insists on a reader’s attention, with an almost hypnotically serene atmosphere interrupted by surreal images and frighteningly recognizable moments of ordinary despair. Han writes convincingly of the disruptive power of longing and the choice to either embrace or deny it, using details that are nearly fantastical in their strangeness to cut to the heart of the very human experience of discovering that one is no longer content with life as it is.
An unusual and mesmerizing novel, gracefully written and deeply disturbing.Pub Date: Feb. 2, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-553-44818-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Hogarth
Review Posted Online: Oct. 19, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2015
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