The Whore’s Child and Other Stories

Richard Russo

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A very short compilation of mostly very short stories about taciturn New England men and the women who torture them in some manner. Only the first and last stories break out of this mold, and they’re the best of the lot: a tale of a nun with an unutterably distressing life trying to find a voice and a tale of a pensive kid realizing he’s not the center of the known universe. Russo’s a wonderful writer, but this book’s chief accomplishment was to convince me never to marry a New England woman, because apparently they bust your balls, cheat on you, or bear you flighty, ungrateful offspring. If you have never read a Richard Russo book, DO NOT READ THIS ONE FIRST; read Nobody’s Fool or Straight Man or Empire Falls. This is C stuff for him, with the exception of those first and last stories, which get a B+.

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