Review by Booklist Review
Stein was praised for the originality of his voice in the novel Straitjacket & Tie (1994), a quality prevalent, as well, in this cunning collection of stories. His prose is clear and his plots efficient. "Mom's Diner" is a frosty little satire; "Close Calls" is a chilling depiction of drug addiction in the sitcom world (Stein's own: he's involved in comedy development for CBS); and "Dream of Life" is a witty little tribute to Patti Smith. Happily, Stein goes beyond hip in the lushly creepy "Death in Belize," a tale of plague and cold pragmatism, and in the arch but intriguing "The Triumph of the Prague Workers' Councils," a story about two women obsessed with a highly politicized Russian artist. If Stein has a flaw, it's his dependence on derivative satirizing of literary conventions (an echo of television's incessant self-parody). --Donna Seaman
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
This uneven, sometimes inventive collection of 13 stories by a novelist (Straitjacket & Tie) and CBS television executive employs spare prose that works best in the more sardonic tales. Among the most accomplished entries are "Death in Belize," which concerns a gay tourist's entanglement with an alluring hustler, and "Hard Bargains," in which a woman reporter confronts her own racism as she covers a ghetto shooting in Chicago. Less successful than these polished narratives of sophisticated urbanites under duress are genre-bending stories such as the grisly but affectless "The Grandmother Golem." "The Triumph of the Prague Workers' Council" is an unsuccessful satire of Marxist academics that toys with conventional (a drawing-room denouement) and unconventional narration (the magic realist elements at the story's end). What is most memorable in the collection is a brief sketch first published in Harper's, "Buster Keaton Gets Faxed." This deadpan account of cynical ad executives' thwarted attempts to fully manipulate the image of the inimitable Keaton is acutely satirical and showcases Stein's sharp sense of irony. Author tour. (July) FYI: Stein will be the judge of the publisher's annual short-story contest for unpublished authors under 35. The 20 winning entries will be collected in a volume to be published in the spring of 1998. (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
In this slim collection of short stories by the author of the novel Straightjacket and Tie (LJ 2/15/94), Stein uses a range of settings and styles, writing in a spare, confident prose that conveys a lot of information in a few words. Some stories have a seemingly autobiographical feel, dealing with a young narrator coming to terms with his homosexuality. Others seem eerie or supernatural, as if the world were not quite what we expected. In one of the longer and more successful stories, "Triumph of the Prague Worker's Councils," two women become entangled in art dealing and radical political history, but the story shifts subtly to a futuristic ending. "One City" is a happy, bicoastal dream in which the best parts of New York and Los Angeles are glommed together, and TV executive Stein also lets us into the high-pressure world of the entertainment industry. But while it contains a few gems like these, this collection is uneven overall. For comprehensive literary collections.Reba Leiding, Rensselaer Polytechnic Inst., Troy, N.Y. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
The author of the novel Straitjacket and Tie (1994) displays a greater narrative range, and more stylistic daring, in this first collection of 13 stories. The weaker pieces here rely on the same gay themes as Straitjacket: In ``Mixed Signals,'' a teenager in Forest hills experiences his first homosexual longing for his older brother's college roommate, whose gay self-confidence reassures the younger boy. In ``Death in Belize,'' a naive American executive in his 20s is seduced by a handsome Peruvian who turns out to be a hustler and a carrier of a lethal infection. Some shortcuts offer quick comedic takes on ambitious studio execs (``Buster Keaton Gets Faxed''); a fan's obsession with Patti Smith (``Dream of Life''); a diner where nothing negative is allowed (``Mom's Dinner''); and The Book as sexual subject (``Kiss This Book''). The longer stories vary from the strained seriousness of ``Hard Bargains''--in which a young Chicago journalist discovers her racist tendencies--to ``The Grandma Golem,'' a fable that retells the Jewish myth with a slight twist. A fine story, ``Close Calls,'' is partly drawn from Stein's day job as a v.p. of comedy development for CBS; it records the pressures of the entertainment business and one young exec's substance-abuse problem. On a wholly other note, ``The Art of Falling'' and ``Broken Mathematics'' offer delightful tales of modern love--one between a charming tax-dodger and his sexually- repressed investigator, the other between a grad student in math and two contrasting lovers. The best piece here, though, is the inventive, intelligently playful ``The Triumph of the Prague Worker's Council,'' a mystery involving an obscure Russian Situationist artist. The story cleverly embodies the very radical anarchist notions it explores. Various and worthwhile, from Lynch-like bits of surrealism to steady-handed realism, Stein's literary fictions will surprise those literary types who may hold his high-powered job against him.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Review by Booklist Review
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Review by Library Journal Review
Review by Kirkus Book Review
