Joel Conarroe
DONALD BARTHELME clearly loves New York....Many of these 24 pieces appeared originally in The New Yorker, long receptive to Mr. Barthelme's mildly daring variations on the roman nouveau ....the stories, uneven as they are, reveal a consistently affectionate attitude toward the place this Texas native now calls home....There are some allusions to the minor nuisances city dwellers must learn to endure - roaches, muggings, greedy landlords....Much of the poetry of this book, though, lacks resonance, and the overall effect of the stories, is curiously vacuous. -- New York Times