A review by erica_lynn_huberty
Bobcat & Other Stories by Rebecca Lee

3.0

I find it difficult to even review this collection. My immediate response to each story in “Bobcat” was total immersion in the narrative, and admiration for Lee’s deftly-crafted prose. But at the conclusion of each story—an amorphous, Henry James-like non-conclusion—I was left at sea: disconnected and frustrated. A disclaimer: I am a short story writer myself, who often tells first-person narratives in differing voices, and thrives on not giving too much information to readers. I wholly believe in the ambiguity of life and in not neatly tying up everything. So if I feel the way I do about this book, I am frankly shocked at how many readers (never mind the publisher) herald it. Each story has a large, engrossing arc that abruptly ends in a vague, lightening-speed semi-resolution. The problem with this is that Lee’s characters are so wonderfully fleshed-out, the dialogue witty and brilliant, the observations astute and complex, that to trail-off suddenly as each story does feels more lazy and bizarre than purposeful and philosophical. Claire Messud’s “The Hunters” would be an excellent example of what Lee’s stories seemed like they were trying to achieve. The best two in this collection are Slatland and Bobcat; though, again, each left me with an annoyed sigh by the end.