Val Moorehouse
Last Updated on June 7, 2022, by eNotes Editorial. Word Count: 134
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Kostelanetz focuses on kinetic/semantic book elements in his minimal guy-meets-gal fiction [One Night Stood: A Minimal Fiction] printed in contrasting formats. In 310 words he parodies the humorously familiar "rise and fall" progress of the one-night-stand. Plot's quickly done, leaving the shift in format, mini-book to tabloid, to assume the burdens of action, reaction, and relationship. The book, with one to two words per page, cultivates page-turning suspense not present in the tabloid. The tabloid, with word pairs zig-zagging down large pages, invites ironic comparison and cross-reading not possible page by page. Normally invisible, tension between design and meaning is here perceived.
Val Moorehouse, in a review of "One Night Stood: A Minimal Fiction," in Booklist (reprinted by permission of the American Library Association; copyright © 1978 by the American Library Association), Vol. 75, No. 8, December 15, 1978, p. 669.
