Rating: 
Summary: Bittersweet stories.
Review: "This . . . is what people mean when they refer to life as a great mystery," one of the characters reflects in this collection of stories (p. 109). Like Andres Dubus and Raymond Carver before him, Pulitzer-Prize-winning author Richard Russo succeeds at honestly examining "the great mystery" of American behavior in his first collection of short stories. Whether he's writing about marital infidelity or domestic abuse, Russo engages his reader with well-drawn characters and bittersweet epiphanies. In the title story within a story, Russo introduces us to Sister Ursula, an aging nun who, through a fiction writing class, discovers the "willful lie" she'd been telling herself over a lifetime (p. 21). In "Monhegan Light," an emotionally calcified moviemaker falls "truly in love" with his deceased wife only "through another man's eyes" (p. 52). In another story, we accompany a middle-aged academic, who is recovering from prostate surgery, as he runs his physically abusive son-in-law out of town. In "Joy Ride," a mother fleeing the perceived "slavery" of her marriage, takes her son on a "shabby" cross-country roadtrip, "devoid of glory" (p. 108). While some are stronger than others, these stories are satisfying overall.G. Merritt
Rating:
Summary: Bittersweet stories.
Review: "This . . . is what people mean when they refer to life as a great mystery," one of the characters reflects in this collection of stories (p. 109). Like Andres Dubus and Raymond Carver before him, Pulitzer-Prize-winning author Richard Russo succeeds at honestly examining "the great mystery" of American behavior in his first collection of short stories. Whether he's writing about marital infidelity or domestic abuse, Russo engages his reader with well-drawn characters and bittersweet epiphanies. In the title story within a story, Russo introduces us to Sister Ursula, an aging nun who, through a fiction writing class, discovers the "willful lie" she'd been telling herself over a lifetime (p. 21). In "Monhegan Light," an emotionally calcified moviemaker falls "truly in love" with his deceased wife only "through another man's eyes" (p. 52). In another story, we accompany a middle-aged academic, who is recovering from prostate surgery, as he runs his physically abusive son-in-law out of town. In "Joy Ride," a mother fleeing the perceived "slavery" of her marriage, takes her son on a "shabby" cross-country roadtrip, "devoid of glory" (p. 108). While some are stronger than others, these stories are satisfying overall. G. Merritt
Rating:
Summary: Novels are Better, but Still Worth the Read
Review: After Empire Falls, Straight Man, and particularly Nobody's Fool, I'd follow Richard Russo anywhere, so it wasn't all that great a leap to read these stories. They are solid and entertaining, but for Russo newcomers I'd recommend picking up his novels first. Their grandness overshadows the slighter, but still effective, voice he uses in these tales. He's not quite a master of the form, though, (at least not yet) and so they don't quite have the stabbing precision of someone like Andre Dubus. Of the collection, I enjoyed the title story, Joy Ride, and Monhegan Light the most.
Rating: 
Summary: An interesting-and successful-departure for Russo.
Review: I am a huge Russo fan but I have to admit that I was a bit skeptical about this book going in. Russo's novels are huge, densely written affairs-with the possible exception of Straight Man, which is huge but more lightly written. I had my doubts that Russo would be able to pull of a consistently good series of short stories if only because his overall style seems so antithetical to the requirements of that genre. Russo, in fact, pulls this off with aplomb. I have to agree with a previous reviewer in that I still think his novels are much better-but this is a brilliant collection. The book consists of seven stories all told from a distinctly different point of view-a professor of literature, a ten year old boy, an aggrieved and put up father, and so on. There is no particular underlying theme that unites these efforts. The stories bear a distinct Russo style-fairly densely written, highly introspective, multiple, remarkably fully fleshed out characters (a particular Russo trademark) for short stories, a decidedly small town flavor throughout. The characters are engaging, the situations both dramatic and comical, the stories original and fresh. My only complaint is that in a couple of cases I simply didn't want the story to end-it was as if what I'd read was a chapter in a much larger novel-and the rest of the chapters were missing! Very frustrating! I personally think that if Russo wants to use the short for the novella would be a better choice-say three 100 page efforts. I believe this would afford the freedom (or tyranny, depending on your disposition) of the short story in a format more suited to the complexity of his writing style. On te other hand, it's pretty much gotten to the point that anything he writes works for me-I just wish he were more prolific. An excellent book!
Rating: 
Summary: Not for the young and vibrant
Review: I did not enjoy reading about middle-aged men in the midst of a crisis. That is what most of the stories are about. I did not connect or relate to any of the characters. I was happy that the stories were short because I could not stand an entire novel of such depressing and predictable content. Yes, this book was well written, however, if that is a large portion of justifying this book as excellent then I would advise exploring other kinds of books;there are plenty of books that are both interesting and well written. I would mostly recommend this book for men and even then, middle-aged men. I think this is a better audience for the author's style of writing.
Rating:
Summary: This book reaffirmed my aesthetic
Review: I teach at a large university and had recently spent a lot of time among academics, learning and thinking about literary and critical theory. I love that stuff for the avenues of understanding it can make available to us and for the depth it can add to our favorite books. But spend enough time in Theory-Land and among the examples its inhabitants trot out, and you start to believe that there's no place anymore for a good story, well told. Well, Theory-Land is a nice place to visit, but I've no interest in living there, and thankfully The Whore's Child brought me back. These are, simply, great stories. And I use the word "simply" here paradoxically, because there is absolutely nothing simple about creating characters on a page that come alive with all the complexity and mystery of real people whose lives we can enter at their most revealing points. This is not to say that Russo does not experiment with form, because he does--the title story is essentially a story within a story, showing us large chunks of a student writer's manuscript; the last story is told through numerous facets of a young boy's consciousness in one of the best evocations of youthful understanding and misunderstanding I've ever read--but unlike so much "cutting edge" writing these days, Russo's experiments in form are always secondary to the story itself. One never gets the feeling that he's impressed at his own cleverness, winking over his shoulders at the other literary theorists also "in the know". Read Empire Falls for the evocation of a small town and the way that town's character intertwines with the characters of its citizens; read Straight Man for the send-up of Academia and the often caustic humor of the first-person voice, both obscuring and revealing a tender and surprisingly idealistic core. But for the range of genius possible in unself-conscious narrative, for the depth of feeling that good writing can provoke, for the precise niche of character that is the hallmark of literary fiction, I can think of no book I've read recently that matches The Whore's Child.
Rating:
Summary: This book reaffirmed my aesthetic
Review: I teach at a large university and had recently spent a lot of time among academics, learning and thinking about literary and critical theory. I love that stuff for the avenues of understanding it can make available to us and for the depth it can add to our favorite books. But spend enough time in Theory-Land and among the examples its inhabitants trot out, and you start to believe that there's no place anymore for a good story, well told. Well, Theory-Land is a nice place to visit, but I've no interest in living there, and thankfully The Whore's Child brought me back. These are, simply, great stories. And I use the word "simply" here paradoxically, because there is absolutely nothing simple about creating characters on a page that come alive with all the complexity and mystery of real people whose lives we can enter at their most revealing points. This is not to say that Russo does not experiment with form, because he does--the title story is essentially a story within a story, showing us large chunks of a student writer's manuscript; the last story is told through numerous facets of a young boy's consciousness in one of the best evocations of youthful understanding and misunderstanding I've ever read--but unlike so much "cutting edge" writing these days, Russo's experiments in form are always secondary to the story itself. One never gets the feeling that he's impressed at his own cleverness, winking over his shoulders at the other literary theorists also "in the know". Read Empire Falls for the evocation of a small town and the way that town's character intertwines with the characters of its citizens; read Straight Man for the send-up of Academia and the often caustic humor of the first-person voice, both obscuring and revealing a tender and surprisingly idealistic core. But for the range of genius possible in unself-conscious narrative, for the depth of feeling that good writing can provoke, for the precise niche of character that is the hallmark of literary fiction, I can think of no book I've read recently that matches The Whore's Child.
Rating:
Summary: What a Great Collection
Review: I'll admit this right up front. I was a little disappointed when I heard that Russo's latest release was a collection of short stories. I believe his novels are some of the best fiction being produced these days. Still though, I ran right out and got this collection--and that's where the disappointment ended. These stories are powerful and will stay with you. Russo is simply a wonderful writer and these characters and their lives will inhabit your imagination for some time after reading this collection. Enjoy.
Rating:
Summary: He's a long-distance writer, not a sprinter
Review: I'm a huge fan of Russo's work, and have read all his books, some more than once. The way Russo creates characters that I can identify with, in the midst of banal situations, is a rare talent. So I naturally bought this book immediately. Russo, however, is a long-distance writer, not a sprinter. His stories don't give him the space he needs to develop characters. While several of the stories in this collection are gems, one cannot help but think that Russo could have taken them further - a few hundred pages further - and make novels out of them. I'll still give this 4 stars because Russo is one of the finest stylests writing in English today, and has one of the best ears for dialog. A great writer, but not a great book.
Rating:
Summary: An absorbing series of peeks into others? lives.
Review: I'm always surprised at how many people I know (even writers!) who haven't read his novels, which do something rare in American literature: talk about the dirty, shameful topic of failure. He's a poet of it, whether of failed marital or parental relationships, or of careers and dreams. I enter his world the way I enter Balzac or George Eliot. There's a depth of social observation blending with psychological insight that no one else comes close to in contemporary fiction. He's not a flashy writer and he's not fashionably nasty or cynical--but he's rich, rewarding and deeply compassionate even of his fools. This collection has all those qualities, though I prefer his novels
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