I read a review of The Stories of Mary Gordon in Entertainment Weekly (subscription may be required) this week. EW gave it an A, saying:
In a lesser writer’s hands, the protagonists in Mary Gordon’s impeccable Stories collection — mostly average women trying to make the best of their disappointing lots — would be forgettable, if not maudlin. Instead, these characters are splendid in their ridiculous humanity. They over-compensate for shameful childhoods (”City Life”), march stoically through their comfortless dotage (”Death in Naples”), and are duped by their good intentions (”The Baby”). Gordon’s new stories are deeper and more relaxed, but all provide a mesmeric read you’ll want to inhale and savor at the same time.
As I have noted before, I don’t usually read short stories, because I fear that I will feel unsatisfied at the end. I like the plot and character development and the feeling of losing myself in a good story. But this collection looks good. Here’s more from the Random House website (the book’s publisher):
Gordon captures the sharp scent of feelings as they shift, the shape of particular lives in their hope and incomprehensibility. In “The Neighborhood,” a seven-year-old who has lost her father finds birthday parties, with their noisy games and spun-sugar roses on fancy cakes, her greatest trial. “City Life” explores the dark side of Manhattan apartment living. “Intertextuality” proposes a dream meeting between Proust’s characters and the author’s aging grandmother. Throughout, Gordon’s surprising path to the center of a story is as much a part of the tale as the self-understanding her characters achieve in the process: “What were they all, any of them, feeling?” one narrator ventures. “This was the sort of question no one in my family would ask. Feelings were for others: the weak, the idle. We were people who got on with things.”
I can’t find any other reviews online. Has anyone ever read any short stories by Mary Gordon?
Note to EDIWTB readers: I am headed out tomorrow for a work retreat in Detroit (yes, Detroit), so I wont be posting for a few days. Happy reading!