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A review by suddenflamingword
Portraits of a Few of the People I've Made Cry by Christine Sneed
2.0
(More 2.5 than pure 2)
Outside of three stories ("Quality of Life," "For Once In Your Life," "Walled City") - and even these three when considered in the wider context outside the collection - there doesn't feel like much to take away from this. There's an almost syndicated-programming quality to the structure:
1. Woman encounters man. Typically one is moving from an urban to a suburban space.
2. Man is massively appealing. Either he's truly sexy ("Interview with the Second Wife"), has wealth ("Quality of Life"), is famous ("Alex Rice Inc"), or some other variant of 'power.'
3. This imbalance somehow represents the gendered hierarchies built into society that these women either adhere to unconsciously ("A Million Dollars"), struggle and fail against ("Quality of Life"), or succeeds bittersweetly ("By The Way")
It's not copy+paste, but it's noticeably repetitive. When the stories do escape this structure, they don't build convincing portraits (of the made crying or the criers) as much as a strange universe where physical desire is the pivot of all narrative and this desire is always PG-13. Both neutered and too much. The gossipy soccer mom-types in"For Once In Your Life" summarize this book almost perfectly.
Outside of three stories ("Quality of Life," "For Once In Your Life," "Walled City") - and even these three when considered in the wider context outside the collection - there doesn't feel like much to take away from this. There's an almost syndicated-programming quality to the structure:
1. Woman encounters man. Typically one is moving from an urban to a suburban space.
2. Man is massively appealing. Either he's truly sexy ("Interview with the Second Wife"), has wealth ("Quality of Life"), is famous ("Alex Rice Inc"), or some other variant of 'power.'
3. This imbalance somehow represents the gendered hierarchies built into society that these women either adhere to unconsciously ("A Million Dollars"), struggle and fail against ("Quality of Life"), or succeeds bittersweetly ("By The Way")
It's not copy+paste, but it's noticeably repetitive. When the stories do escape this structure, they don't build convincing portraits (of the made crying or the criers) as much as a strange universe where physical desire is the pivot of all narrative and this desire is always PG-13. Both neutered and too much. The gossipy soccer mom-types in"For Once In Your Life" summarize this book almost perfectly.