Prohibitionism and depression: these are the two words that come to mind, reading this collection of short stories by Dorothy Parker, in her luxurious prose and through the sharp lenses of her social criticism.
Some of these are one-sided flows, voicing a dialogue from the point of just one actor.
Others are more traditional short stories, featuring stuff like a disgusting man who’s admiring a woman on the tram (and everything else would be a spoiler), a guy who’s courting the idea of leaving his family (and I can’t blame him, honestly, I cannot blame him), a lady who adopted a child with loads of plans for his future (the miserable thing).
The titular story is an absolute punch in the guts, and the main character won’t leave me for a while.
Here’s the list of stories:
- The Standard of Living, in which two friends play a game of pretend, and they find luxury is much more expensive than they think:
- You Were Perfectly Fine, in which a woman reminds a man what he did when he was drunk and, honestly, he was perfectly fine;
- Such a Pretty Little Picture, the one with the guy thinking of dropping everything and make a run for it;
- Glory in the Daytime, where a woman meets an actress and it’s all much more subtle than “never meet your heroes”;
- From the Diary of a New York Lady (and you’ll want to punch her);
- Mr Durant (and you’ll want to throw up);
- Just a Little One, and they mean just a little glass of whiskey;
- Little Curtis (the poor fellow);
- Lady with a Lamp, a flow of one-sided conversation from a woman visiting a sick friend that’s probably better off without her;
- Big Blonde.
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