Tuesday, August 02, 2011

The Middleman and Other Stories

After being profoundly affected by Bharati Mukherjee's short story 'The Management of Grief', I didn't hesitate to snap up this book when I saw it at The Strand for 49 cents.

I shouldn't have bothered. The Management of Grief, which comes at the very end, was the only story that I truly liked. The rest of the book was filled with stories about crass characters, which I guess is a success of sorts as Mukherjee deliberately set out to portray her characters in an unflattering light. But reading about a dissolute Vietnam vet, a user-friendly Filipina, and an exploited Trinidadian, among others, didn't satisfy me.

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