Do the Windows Open? Book

It's rare for me to find a book I absolutely dislike. If you're up for 200 pages of luxurious ramblings from a New Yorker set pre-9/11, this might be for you. I didn't find any of these stories funny. Admittedly, the New Yorker's style of humor isn't my jig in the first place.

There is no arc to any of these stories, no great lessons, no emotional experiences for the characters or the author herself. For someone so fond of wide open spaces the author seems awfully neurotic. At one point her friend calls her spiritual. I don't buy it for a second. She approaches everyone she meets with a blend of curiosity and annoyance that sometimes quickly becomes disdain or just plain prejudice. She floats around New York skimming over the tops of people's lives. What is the point of reading these stories? What is a reader supposed to get out of this? Some notion that the world would be a better place if Bill Clinton had a better haircut, or everyone passionately avoided yin nightshade vegetables, or if there were more than two shades of green floor paint?

Some writers just want to be heard. I suppose it satisfies their egos. I'm not without my own prejudices - such as assuming middle age women who are rude and always think they're right must be immature. I should have stopped reading this book a few stories into it because it just became me ranting in my head against the author. Sorry I didn't get the joke.