Objectively speaking, my four-and-a-half star rating for The Law of Averages is too high. For some reason, though, Barthelme's style appeals to me. His stories are immediately recognizable for their settings (apartment complexes and Gulf Coast casinos), characters (passive Southern blue-collar men and the women who drive them), plots (nearly non-existent, everyday events), and tone (dryly funny).
The IHOP was empty. It reeked of maple syrup, air freshener, cigarette smoke. The workers, all refugees from better times, loitered at the serving counter, looking sticky. ("From Mars")
He hung up and thumbed the remote on the television, going through the channels, looking for an update [on the weather]...Wallace tried to punch the button to unmute the sound, but he missed and had to punch a couple other buttons, and when he finally got the sound turned up, the station was in the middle of a bean commercial.
The Law of Averages is a short-story collection, presented in chronological order. It's interesting to see the development of Barthelme's style over time. The protagonists of the early stories are sad passive men who get taken on a ride by strong women; the middle stories often feature strange relationships between brothers (Barthelme's brother is the more famous Donald Barthelme); everything comes into balance in the later stories.
Anyway, I can't justify it, but I love Barthelme's stories.
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