All the Time in the World

March 14, 2011
It's best to be suspicious when a writer's topic is said to be America, but in the case of Doctorow, the claim has merit. The much lauded (three Pulitzer Prize nominations, three-time National Book Critics Circle Award winner) Doctorow writes novelsâincluding Ragtime, World's Fair, and Billy Bathgateâthat paint America in all its shine and sleaze. And, though on a smaller canvas, his short stories possess the same breadth. These storiesâhalf of which have appeared in other collections, half collected for the first time, and one making its debutâmove from the Bronx to the Midwest, from city to suburb, and feature among other characters criminals, upstanding citizens gone temporarily feral, religious cultists, and a Dylanesque songwriter who poetically writes his way through an alternate and wholly recognizable American history. The stories aren't equally strongâthere's awkward dialogue in some, an unconvincing premise in "Wakefield," an ending that feels tacked on to the otherwise strong "Walter John Harmon" and, in the title story, strangeness that seems to be there for its own sake. But the strongestâ"A House on the Plains," "The Writer in the Family," "Assimilation," and "Liner Notes: The Songs of Billy Bathgate"âcover an expansive terrain and combine the compact satisfactions of short fiction with a leisurely refusal to hurry.

March 1, 2011

An eclectic selection of shorter fiction from a veteran author more renowned for his novels.

Following what was widely considered one of his better recent novels (Homer & Langley, 2009), the New York writer best known for his interweave of fact and fiction in Ragtime (1975) does the authorial equivalent of a closet cleaning with a dozen stories that find him adopting a variety of narrative voices and perspectives. Seven of the stories originally appeared in the New Yorker, and one of those ("Heist") was later incorporated into the novel City of God (2000). Another, "Liner Notes: The Songs of Billy Bathgate," reads like an addendum to Billy Bathgate (1989), like the notes to a collection of songs by the protagonist, each a paragraph long (though one paragraph extends over five pages), likely inscrutable to those unfamiliar with the novel. Yet there is plenty of first-rate work here to please Doctorow fans and others who appreciate a well-told story. Many of them have a spiritual dimension, and the most provocative of these is "Walter John Harmon," the testament of a lawyer involved with a religious cult and his growing suspicions that the unlikely prophet has designs on the narrator's wife. The shortest story, "Willi," ranks with the most powerful, as an older man recalls a boyhood experience in which a Whitmanesque rapture over the joys of being alive in nature proceeded to a discovery of his mother's affair, and the uneasy mixture of betrayal and desire his mother's sexuality elicited. "Jolene: A Life" strays far from Doctorow's usual territory, in its narrative of a poor Southern girl whose attractiveness toward the wrong kind of men proves a curse. And while the concluding title story would seem to place the fiction in more familiar terrain, its Manhattan metaphysics are more reminiscent of Paul Auster's New York than Doctorow's.

A warm-up volume for the "collected stories" that will eventually, inevitably follow.

(COPYRIGHT (2011) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

March 15, 2011

In his preface to this collection of 12 stories, some new and some familiar, Doctorow explains that while a novel begins with an image, a story begins with a situation. The situations here are diverse, with settings both urban and suburban, contemporary and historical, but the organizing principle is neither time nor space. Because each story has its "own particular light," explains Doctorow, he has "banded the stories in packets of similar mental light." Thus, the opening story, "Wakefield," about a man who spends several months hiding out on his own property for no apparent reason, is followed by another tale of suburban uneasiness, "Edgemont Drive." In "Assimilation," a busboy gets hooked into marrying the boss's late uncle's daughter from the home country, while "Liner Notes: The Songs of Billy Bathgate" shows the struggle to assimilate in an earlier era. Coming next, "Heist" and "Walter John Harmon" deal with issues of corrupted faith. As one would expect, each situation is captured perfectly in smooth and literate language, and Doctorow gets off some wonderful zingers: "The paperback's world is...dependable in its punishments," muses a defeated priest. "More than I can say for Yours." VERDICT A wonderful compendium, even for those who have read Doctorow exhaustively, because the organization is so illuminating. [See Prepub Alert, LJ 10/1/10.]--Barbara Hoffert, Library Journal

Copyright 2011 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

March 1, 2011
Virtuoso Doctorow is revered for his grandly dimensional novels, but he is also a superlative and transfixing short story writer. The incandescent new stories and forever stunning vintage talessome from Lives of the Poets (1984), others from Sweet Land Stories (2004)that Doctorow selected for this powerhouse collection portray psychological outliers on the edge of either liberation or an abyss. Doctorow is rightfully treasured for his social acuity and fluency in urban life, but he is also a penetrating observer of nature and our concealed primal selves. Our hunters instinct and the symbiotic dance between predator and prey underlies Wakefield, in which a married lawyer and father of twins suddenly turns feral, living on the prowl in the wild behind his Victorian home, and also Assimilation, a ravishing tale of mobsters, brothers, and a green-card marriage. Elsewhere we meet a vulnerable young teacher in a dying town and a big-city runner who escapes into visions of the wilds of Mongolia. Like iron trellises wreathed with flowering vines, Doctorows complex and masterful tales of the strangeness, pain, and beauty of life are wise and resplendent. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: A landmark collection from a preeminent and popular writer who elevates the best-seller lists with each new book.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2011, American Library Association.)