*** very well written, funny...midlife ambivalence of a graphic artist at a summer art camp for grownups

*** very good novel...in the patricia lockwood category

Frumkin's adventures in middle-brow land. Not to be mean-spirited, but this book creaked from beginning to end. Unpersuasive characters, style trying too hard to be clever, and endless scenes in airplanes that made me never want to travel again. This book makes Truman Capote look like Tolstoy. Speaking of which, back to War and Peace (I'm on page 273, the battle of Austerlitz), which features a regiment dog named Zhuchka, the same name as the dog in Brothers Karamazov. Must be a Fido/Rover kind of thing. Look for a Labradoodle named Zhuchka in Prospect Heights at some point in the future.

**** great short stories--reminiscent of flannery o'connor