Volume 55, Number 2 · February 14, 2008
Signs of Struggle
By Claire Messud
Cheating at Canasta
by William Trevor
Viking, 232 pp., $24.95
In each generation, over the course of time and through the production of volumes of fiction of almost unwavering quality, a small pantheon of Unassailables forms. These writers' names are spoken in tones of hushed reverence; their work is, in some absolute sense, beyond criticism. Elevation to this summit is a mixed blessing for a writer: surely there is triumph in the ascent, but mere mortals are more zealously absorbed, even embroiled, in the muddy hurly-burly down below. Which is to say that awed respect and admiration can come to resemble indifference.
Review, 3906 words
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