Gorilla, My Love

Just read the first two pages—the "Sort of Preface" to this 1972 story collection—and see if you can resist going further. That sly confidence, that voice: lively, boastful, affectionate, exasperated! And when the stories begin, the voice is still there, often representing a young girl full of bravado but sensitive to a slight, knocking around in the three dimensions of a fully felt social world. There are old men too, and career women, and widows who will dance close at a party no matter what their children think. They are so good at talking it can almost seem like singing. —Tom Old Book of the Week