If I have a quibble with the much-celebrated stories in this collection, it’s that their protagonists are all of a same type. Young white women in the west, unlucky in love but undeterred. The variables are the name, occupation, and age. On their own, each story is interesting, insightful, touching. And Houston has perfected the second-person narration. But read consecutively (which some people advocate, others disagree), they become a bit repetitive.
I chased the book down with some John Cheever stories. Good, odd, unique stuff.
Thursday, February 28, 2008
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So how would you characterize what Houston does vs. what Cheever does? After all, his stories often contain the same types: upper middle to upper crust, white, commuters to NYC, rumblings beneath a suburban surface. Do you think that he just changes the variables, too? If "yes, but," I'd like to know what the but is.
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