Frederick Barthelme usually gets compared to other Southern writers or other so-called minimalists, but I'm going to make a more offbeat comparison. Reading Frederick Barthelme books is like watching Yasujirō Ozu films.
All of his works take place in the same locale and milieu, with essentially the same characters, with stories that highlight mundane everyday activities and feature strong women. In the good ones, the particularities resonate in a way that produces tenderness, humor, and universality; in the less good ones, it feels like nothing actually happened.
Barthelme stories take place in condos along the Gulf Coast, with indolent men and the interesting women who love them. In There Must Be Some Mistake, Wallace lives outside of Galveston in a condo complex that is experiencing a rash of deaths. It has more plot than many Barthelme books do -- as the New York Times Book Review said, it "often reads like an amusing existential satire of the detective novel" -- although I found it less funny.
All of his works take place in the same locale and milieu, with essentially the same characters, with stories that highlight mundane everyday activities and feature strong women. In the good ones, the particularities resonate in a way that produces tenderness, humor, and universality; in the less good ones, it feels like nothing actually happened.
Barthelme stories take place in condos along the Gulf Coast, with indolent men and the interesting women who love them. In There Must Be Some Mistake, Wallace lives outside of Galveston in a condo complex that is experiencing a rash of deaths. It has more plot than many Barthelme books do -- as the New York Times Book Review said, it "often reads like an amusing existential satire of the detective novel" -- although I found it less funny.
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