Russell Banks is highly regarded, indeed. Lost Memory of Skin didn’t do much for me,
but I thought that was a one-time misfire. So I picked up the new collection of
stories, A Permanent Member of the Family. No, I don’t get what all the fuss is
about. The stories are very
traditional. Nothing wrong with
that. Every author doesn’t have to
venture far afield like George Saunders or David Foster Wallace. But there needs to be something special, be
it the precision of Tobias Wolff, the warmth of Lahiri, the deadly social
commentary and deeply personal insights of Cheever, the sumptuous sentences of Updike or even the
flashy bling of Tom Wolfe. None of the
above here, and I’m left wondering.
Must be me.
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