Shorts

Last week's New Yorker was one of the more satisfying ones in recent memory--and they've been on a good streak with the fiction as well.

I really liked E.L. Doctorow's piece Edgemont Drive. Short, simple, meditation on dispossession and suburban priorities.

And last week's story, Allegra Goodman's La Vita Nuova, was similarly punchy. I found this one poignant 'cause I identified with it more directly, but I think it's well-constructed. I'm a little leery of a story that begins with a woman getting dumped by a fiance, but it never veers into chick lit-ish self-pity. I'm not familiar with Ms. Goodman's work, but I'll probably check her out.