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The Struggle for Happiness |
List Price: $22.95
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Reviews |
Description:
A new book by Ruthann Robson is always a cause for celebration. This latest offering is a collection of eight thoughtful, loosely linked stories, many drawing on Robson's experiences as a law professor and theorist. In "Black Squirrels," for instance, a disabled and displaced college professor plots ways to undermine the development of a shopping mall down the street from her rural home. The two best stories here are the deceptively simple "Review," in which an overly zealous young writer submits her first book review--a savage critique of a new novel by an established writer--and learns with horror that the novelist has killed herself soon after reading it, and "Death of the Subject," in which a psychic tries to help her cop girlfriend unravel a local crime (the title is a nod to postmodern theory that only makes sense in the last line of the story, like the kick in a Bloody Mary). The linking of stories in The Struggle for Happiness is superficial and perhaps unnecessary; the one truly compelling open-ended question ("Where Is Madame Karmakov?") is never answered, although we are teasingly offered a different Madame in a later story. Read these pieces in any order, and keep your eye on Madame. --Regina Marler
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