From Publishers Weekly
A close observer of the bleak Manhattan landscape mapped by McInerney and Janowitz et al., newcomer Cymbalista delineates in her short stories the fragile milieus of young, disillusioned careerists. "The Light in the Window" describes minutely the emotions of a bond trader spending a stormy morning with her lover at the shore; birds kill themselves flying into a window, as she makes love and then feels herself losing all hope. "Manhattan Boxes" measures the progress of a woman's relationships by the contents of various characters' refrigerators. "Choice" tells of an adolescent's dependence on an abusive older man. Addictions and dependencies--on sex, graphically and coolly described, or drugs or alcohol--dominate the terrain; it is not a pretty place, and Cymbalista's reports are not encouraging. Yet they ring with authenticity, and when she ventures beyond, as in "Alpine Sake," where the narrator confronts his incestuous attraction to his daughter, writerly accomplishment and promise bloom together on the page.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.
