Murder and comedy T. Coraghessan Boyle is one of the most intriguing and most brilliant of the new writers of fiction. He is equally adept at the novel and at short fiction, in which he demonstrates his versatility and variety. This collection of 15 excellently crafted stories follow the much praised novels, "Water Music" and "Budding Prospects." Several of these stories are grim in subject matter and one, the title story, is about violence and murder. But Boyle also has his comic touch, as in the hilarious story "Ike and Nina," which describes a fanciful love affair between President Eisenhower and Nina Khrushchev, wife of the Soviet leader, which contains this description of the president's sorrow in not having some time alone with his love: "I offered him my handkerchief but he motioned me away, great wet heaving sobs tearing at his lungs, the riveting blue eyes that had gazed with equanimity on the most heinous scenes of devastation known to civilized man reddened with a sorrow beyond despair. 'Nina,' he choked..." There is political satire in these stories and also drama of a more familiar kind. But Boyle is skillful in each genre. |