Bobcat And Other Stories is a collection of stories by Rebecca Lee that generally focus on love, infidelity and intellectual connection, often in academic settings. I read about this book in my Book A Day 2018 calendar and found it intriguing, and picked it up at the library. It’s a pretty uneven collection of stories. In the title story, a dinner party forces two marriages to come to terms, although the one that fails is not the one you would suspect. In another story, a student at a small midwestern college plagiarizes a paper, only to find herself thrust into the limelight when her professor, who is aware of the plagiarism, arranges for her to present it for his own political agenda. In the most memorable story, a woman finds herself in Hong Kong serving as a surprisingly matchmaker for her male friend, at the request of his father.
Bobcat And Other Stories has some beautiful writing, and Lee’s stories definitely have those unexpected twists that can make short stories so compelling. But in the end this collection came up short for me. I think it’s a bit too esoteric – lots of academia and strange names and odd settings that I had trouble following. In the end I had trouble connecting with it. Too intellectual maybe.
If you go to Goodreads, you will find a lot of people who loved this collection. So if you’re intrigued, go check it out. It just wasn’t for me.