Dusk, and Other Stories (Magill Book Reviews)
At a glance:
- Author: James Hororwitz
- First Published: 1988
- Type of Work: Short Stories
- Genres: Short fiction
- Subjects: Traveling or travelers, Love or romance, Sex or sexuality, Twentieth century, Authors or writers, 1980’s, Alcoholism or alcoholics, Adultery, Accidents, Drinking or drunkenness, Success or failure, Loneliness, Films, movies, or motion pictures, Horses
- Locales: New York, Italy, Illinois, Tangier, Morocco, West Point, CT
At first, exposition seems fragmented. The reader does not always know what to do with the richly detailed but abrupt sentences tossed about with such assurance and yet disconcertingly alinear: a spate of stones scattered in a seemingly irregular pattern. Slowly everything coheres. Understatement, haunting dialogue, and surprising climax all interlock in the unitary effect traditionally associated with the short story.
“Twenty Minutes” moves the reader to a strange pity for a wealthy, easygoing woman whose life is slowly snuffed out in a riding accident. The horse is indifferent; the landscape is indifferent. Only the reader is involved. “The Cinema” is a dazzling tour de force, a parody of a Federico Fellini film in its plenitude of characters and moods, deftly capturing the cynicism and glitter of international film production. The reader is tricked into the delicious pleasure of satiated voyeurism.
The lead story, “Dusk,” supplies the emblematic heart to this collection. A divorced woman’s lover, a caretaker, announces that he is returning to his wife. It is not merely the elegiac tone of lamentation or loss that counts here; it is rather the “dusk” that follows loss, the consciousness of passing strength, of ebbing life. The setting of “Dusk” is the hunting season. Everywhere men are shooting geese. Mrs. Chandler, the divorced woman, is mated symbolically to a murdered bird: “The rain was coming down, the sea was crashing, a comrade lay dead in the whirling darkness.”
Sources for Further Study
Booklist. LXXXIV, January 1, 1988, p. 750.
Chicago Tribune. April 19, 1988, V, p. 3.
Kirkus Reviews. LV, December 15, 1987, p. 1696.
Library Journal. CXIII, January, 1988, p. 100.
Los Angeles Times. February 17, 1988, V, p. 1.
New York. XXI, January 25, 1988, p. 63.
The New York Times Book Review. XCIII, February 21, 1988, p. 9.
People Weekly. XXIX, April 18, 1988, p. 17.
Publishers Weekly. CCXXXII, December 11, 1987, p. 49.
The Washington Post Book World. XVIII, March 6, 1988, p. 1.
Navigate
- Dusk, and Other Stories (Magill Book Reviews)
- Dusk, and Other Stories (Magill’s Literary Annual 1991-2005)
See Also:
- Add Dusk, and Other Stories to your favorites