The Fiddler in the Subway

Gene works within the confines of a terse newspaper style pushing against the constraints of limited lines of copy. There's not much room for meandering prose and building a scene. It's just the facts ma'am. He also relies on the aside and necessary tangents that loop around the main narrative to keep up the punishing pace of information. It's just I kept getting jarred out of the flow.

He's a two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist (both are included in this collection) so don't listen to my armchair criticisms. I love the ideas behind most of his stories too, whether it's a write up on Doonesbury creator Garry Trudeau, having dinner with a girl he had a crush on in elementary school or following around a wildly successful but ultimately damaged children's entertainer - the stories have got legs. I just wasn't that into them.