Reviews for The decline of Western Hill

The average rating for The decline of Western Hill based on 2 reviews is 3.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2012-07-27 00:00:00 Mark Marignac De Cote This book was recommended to me last summer by a former teacher who is also an Episcopalian minister. In December, I entered a "Secret Santa" drawing involving alumni of my alma mater (Grinnell College whaaaaat) and, per statistical probability, drew a woman I'd never met (Which is a good thing! This is why we do this in the first place, to meet other alumni/ae we don't know, and make great connections while impressing them!) Anyway, she described herself as a "book slut", which is great, because so am I, and I decided to go with a New Orleans theme for my package (that's where I live). Ellen Gilchrist seemed an obvious and safe choice (again, recommended by a former teacher/minister who compared her to Tolstoy). So I threw "Victory Over Japan" in a shoebox alongside a wireframe saxophone from the French Market, a fancy postcard, and a gospel/blues album. A few months after I shipped this collection off to aforementioned stranger (and mother of two), I read it myself. Oh man. I've certainly read worse and I probably wouldn't have been struck by it if I'd been in a vacuum, so to speak, but somewhere between the old southern woman graphically masturbating to Tom Selleck and the incestuous, drug fueled, menage a trois, I sat bolt upright and announced "I SENT THIS TO A COMPLETE STRANGER. FOR A CHRISTMAS PRESENT." So, don't send this to anyone you don't know for a Christmas gift, but you should read it for yourself if you want to laugh out loud a lot. The Traceleen chapters are wonderful (and not as offensive as I'd been worried they would be), and Rhoda is a knockout--the title story may be the best in the collection. It's Philip Roth meets Flannery O'Connor. Hit 'em with a mountain!

Review # 2 was written on 2013-01-13 00:00:00 Jake Bellows You should not trust an author with "christ" in her name. That's what I think. I was going to say that Victory Over Japan is a weird book but what is really weird is that this is December 7th. What do you think of that? Maybe I will just quote a paragraph and let you decide for yourself what you think. Here goes. A miracle, the sisters at the Academy of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus would have said. Chemistry, Maurice would say. Energy, Mirium Sallisaw would declare. This particular miraculous energetic piece of chemistry had split into two identical parts and they were attached now to the lining of Nora Jane's womb, side by side, the size of snow peas, sending out for what they needed, water and pizza and sleep, rooms without smoke or bacon grease. Now imagine a whole book - 277 pages - of that. You have to imagine it because you haven't read it. I have read it and it makes me smile. In a sort of sardonic (disdainfully or cynically mocking) way. Yes, two hundred pages would have probably been enough for me. Maybe I should call the book ribald. No, but maybe raucous. But definitely a little too much of a good thing. I am happy to move on to something else.