Certain American States review: Catherine Lacey's stories in quality prose
Certain American States
Catherine Lacey
Granta, $27.99
The state of America remains less than certain, and the interiors Catherine Lacey explores in her latest collection of stories reveal a sly stylist with a talent for confecting humour from characters who are a bit up in the air, from voices of bewilderment, of doubt and failure. Stories range from Violations – a tale about a woman whose husband spies upon her novel manuscript to make sure she isn't writing about him, and unfolds like po-mo origami – to the Coover-like Please Take, which echoes with American high modernism. Lacey's sentences unfold like labyrinths, and despite sometimes desolating emotive terrain, there's an indefatigable, game-like quality to the prose that'll make you laugh.
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