Fresh Complaint
Ratings8
Average rating3.4
15
Ratings8
Average rating3.4
This collection presents characters in the midst of personal and national crises. We meet a failed poet who, envious of other people's wealth during the real-estate bubble, becomes an embezzler; a clavichordist whose dreams of art collapse under the obligations of marriage and fatherhood; and, in "Bronze," a sexually confused college freshman whose encounter with a stranger on a train leads to a revelation about his past and his future.
Reviews with the most likes.
This is a perfectly decent book of short stories. I enjoyed them, but did not love them. The title is apt as each story centers around a person with a chief life complaint – no independence, financially-constrained, societally-constrained, etc... and in each person trying to address their complaint, there's a feeling of futility, or perhaps a grass-is-greener conclusion? I dunno. Seemed like a bunch of short stories about kind of shitty people, doing weird or shitty things (not always, though). Also as usual with books of short stories, some were far better than others. All seemed to end in very unclear, abrupt ways, which I liked as it allows the reader much room for interpretation.
I realize this is a vague review, but that's because I have only vague feelings about this book.
Pretty solid set of short stories. Oddly, I found I had a strong preference for the stories he published in the '80s/'90s over his more recent stories.
