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Portraits Of A Few Of The People I've Made Cry (2010)

by Christine Sneed(Favorite Author)

3.88 of 5 Votes: 5

ISBN

1558498583 (ISBN13: 9781558498587)

languge

English

genre

Romance

publisher

University of Massachusetts Press

review 1: These are well crafted brief tales, not necessarily fitting the title (which is taken from one of the stories). My reaction to them is slightly ambivalent. On the one hand I find them skillful and subtle, and on the other hand I was not, for the most part, deeply drawn in. I generally read one or two of these stories in an evening and then put the book aside in favor of other reading. This is not something I hold against the author, however; readers and writers both have their quirks and preferences. I, for example, have a mild prejudice against fiction written in the present tense (only mild--I've written present-tense fiction too from time to time). And the theme of May-December romance appeared with some frequency here, but although I think it holds promise, for the mos... moret part I wasn't captivated by the particulars here. It's probably unreasonable to go on, because Sneed is a good writer and every good writer attracts his or her own ideal readership. I'm on the edge of that readership but not solidly within, which is probably shown by the fact that my favorite story was the last, the one that doesn't quite fit and which is the only one that departs from depiction of people we may not know personally but can easily imagine living next door.
review 2: "Portraits" was my introduction to Christine Sneed's writing, and it was a revelation. The title is very apt, as this author is an artist of considerable talent. She has the rare ability to create characters walk off the pages. What I particularly liked was that the stories "read" themselves — once beginning, it was hard to put the book down, and I still find myself reflecting on them. Memo to readers: a good short story is complex and should be read more than once, both for "the story" and also its composition. I appreciated the book even more the second time. less

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