Adams, Alice | Ron Carlson (essay date 1989)
Ron Carlson (essay date 1989)
SOURCE: "Clobbering Her Ex," in The New York Times Book Review, October 8, 1989, p. 27.
[In the following essay, Carlson judges Adams's stories in After You've Gone stylistically polished but emotionally and psychologically unsatisfying.]
The 14 short romances in Alice Adams's new collection [After You've Gone] are—with two exceptions—about women. These women are professionals (lawyers, painters, college deans, authors, political activists, architects, psychologists, physicists, sculptors) who live in the upscale world of gracious houses in cities from California to Maryland. They travel to Italy with lovers and on lecture tours without lovers, and to Mexico with and without their husbands. They love cats. Their closest friends are women. And, as the bittersweet title of the book suggests, they've had some trouble with men. But they're almost all better now.
The title...
[The entire page is 978 words long]
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