From Publishers Weekly
Allen is an artist whose work has been widely exhibited. Here she turns to prose for the first time, and the result is a collection of bleak short stories, none longer than two pages, that act as snapshots of an American woman abroad. (The stories appear to be highly autobiographical: the protagonist in most of the narratives is an American artist who is unhappily married for a time to a German and is attracted to a married Dutch doctor.) The themes are predominantly of love betrayed, rejected, or otherwise gone wrong between a man and a woman. Unfortunately, Allen prefers to describe rather than evoke, as in a sentence that reads: "She feels a lightning-like stab; an old wound splits open, and the pain sinks so deep she staggers." The black-and-white drawings reflect the starkness of the prose.
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Review
"Quicksilver dreams...Think of these stories as koans, or comments on the human condition to which the only response can be a deeper recognition of isolation." --The New York Times Book Review
"Short poignant fictions that disclose an adumbrated "self"... Written in the tradition of Robert Walser, the emotionally compressed texts present apartness as an irrevocable detail of everyday life." --Walter Abish
"Allen's gift is for showing how things go sour between people unexpectedly... Full of lightning-like emotional illuminations." --Gary Indiana
"Unabashedly raw, vivid and poetic. The author captures not only the turmoil but the wonder." --Small Press
"Existing somewhere between narrative fiction and prose poetry, Allen's writings could be said to stretch the boundaries of both or bridge the narrowing gap between them." --American Book Review
"Short poignant fictions that disclose an adumbrated "self"... Written in the tradition of Robert Walser, the emotionally compressed texts present apartness as an irrevocable detail of everyday life." --Walter Abish
"Allen's gift is for showing how things go sour between people unexpectedly... Full of lightning-like emotional illuminations." --Gary Indiana
"Unabashedly raw, vivid and poetic. The author captures not only the turmoil but the wonder." --Small Press
"Existing somewhere between narrative fiction and prose poetry, Allen's writings could be said to stretch the boundaries of both or bridge the narrowing gap between them." --American Book Review
