Adams, Alice | Linda Pastan (essay date 1983)
Linda Pastan (essay date 1983)
SOURCE: A review of To See You Again, in American Book Review, July, 1983, p. 4.
[Here, Pastan maintains that Adams's attention to character and detail enable her to skillfully reveal "the whole of an emotional life" in each story.]
Though the titles of Alice Adams' books often sound like the names of popular songs, the books themselves are beautifully crafted tales of the complexities of modern life, particularly for women. It is difficult to publish a collection of short stories these days, and Alice Adams has paid her dues to the market place with some very good novels. But it seems to me that the short story is her true métier. Like a watercolorist, she is skilled in rapidly and economically landscaping her world. The layers of oil color, though not beyond her ability, seem less suited to her temperament.
To See You Again is a collection of nineteen stories whose protagonists...
[The entire page is 958 words long]
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