Library Journal
Coover here presents a series of short, connecting fictions associated with the cinema. Thus, we are given contrivances titled ''Adventure,'' ''Comedy,'' and ''Romance,'' but they violate our expectations of these time-honored forms: ''Shootout at Gentry's Junction'' is a typical Western, but the good guys lose; in ''Charlie in the House of Rue,'' a sort of funhouse, the tricks turn nasty, even murderous; and the romance in ''You Must Remember This'' sours into sordid adultery. These longer fictions are framed by shorter ones carrying out the cinematic conceit: there are previews, shorts, cartoons, even an intermission. Coover's style is viciously witty, so that one must finally ask ''What's the point?'' A brilliant but empty tour de force, though librarians should still consider this new work by the author of the well-received Gerard's Party. Susan Avallone