Complete Stories Book

These are good, but were meant for magazine publication and reading in homeopathic doses.

Parker clearly likes describing awful people and situations in an ironic, very controlled way, but I don't think I love it, at least definitely not en masse. Dark humour, drinking humour, sharp social observation - from racism (Arrangement in Black and White, 1927) to social climbers ("The steps in social ascent may be gauged by the terms employed to describe a man's informal evening dress: the progression goes Tuxedo, Tux, dinner jacket, Black Tie." - The Game). The introduction by Regina Barecca is an interesting example of revisionism, presenting Parker as the unsung Great American Novelist Short Story Author.

Stories I liked best (I leafed through the last section, sketches):

* Big Blonde - a really good, depressing story of a Chandleresque female.
* Arrangement in Black and White
* From the Diary of a New York Lady - fab.
* Advice to the Little Peyton Girl - a classic
* Glory in the Daytime
* Cousin Larry
* Mrs. Hofstadter on Josephine Street - really funny
* The Custard Heart - horrid analysis of insensitivity.
* The Game - a veritable drawing-room thriller. I wasn't sure I was giving it four stars, but The Game settled it.
* Banquet of Crow - a story about a quack therapist/ personal coach, 'helping' her client get through being abandoned by a spouse. Still valid (like most of the observations about the ugliness of human nature in this book).