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Rating: 
Summary: Ron Carlson is magnificient
Review: I had the pleasure of hearing Ron Carlson speak to my Junior English class in high school. He captured my attention then and he did it again with his brilliant stories found in The Hotel Eden. I appreciate his tenacity in writing and his keen understanding of his characters. He is a gifted writer. If you have time to read short stories, this is the book to buy. Each story will fulfill your expectations.
Rating:
Summary: Hotel Eden is an exceptional read.
Review: I usually do not read short stories--never found anything to approach the experience of reading someone like Katherine Anne Porter. However, Ron Carlson has produced his own quirky "magic" with some of his stories in The Hotel Eden. Carlson looks at us and then writes stories about our behavior. So what? Most writers can do this OK. The difference for Carlson's stories may lie in his grace of how carefully he looks at us and reads between the lines of our everyday behavior. What we may get from his stories is something more funny or more sad than we ever knew. Good--honest writing with little artifice or fill.
Rating: 
Summary: Keith Is Aces
Review: If you were to tell me there is a story more perfect than "Keith," I'd say you were wrong.Twelve solid short stories make up this collection, and although some are superior to others, they're all worth reading. I'll break it down story by story, on scale of 1 to 5, with 5 being the best. The Hotel Eden - 3. Saw the ending from the get-go, and the ride isn't all that amazing.
Keith - 5+!
The Prisoner of Bluestone - 4. Solid story.
Zanduce at Second - 4. Strange story, but it works. The House Goes Up - 3. Didn't do much for me.
What We Wanted to Do - 5. Carlson does George Saunders and it's very good, very funny.
The Chromium Hook - 5. The gradual discovery of interconnection (a sense of community) between the characters is done fabulously. Also very funny.
A Note on the Type - 4. Another strange story that works. Carlson's good at taking extraordinary situations and making them believable.
Nightcap - 5. Maybe I'm just a sucker for baseball.
Dr. Slime - 3. Didn't do much for me. The story is about a baker, but it doesn't feel right. It reads like a writer writing in the voice of a baker; I was never able to completely believe the voice.
Down the Green River - 2. Did little for me.
Oxygen - 5. Probably the best story after Keith. Powerful stuff; the retrospective voice works well.
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