For me, a good short story has a beginning, a middle and an end.
With few exceptions, this is a collection of middles.
We're dropped into the middle of a situation (with varying degrees of interestingness) and after a few pages, Carver stops writing and moves onto the next.
None of the contents of the book are badly written. I do like the spare prose style. there isn't a wasted word in the book. However, there are no particular bon mots or truly memorable events.
There are several very nice character studies. He manages to build the characters very efficiently. They seemed quite real as I was reading each story. The dialogue always felt natural and unforced. It's a shame they were never particularly memorable.
I finished this book last week and I struggle to remember what most of the stories were about from the titles. It's not a good sign when they've faded so completely from my memory in such a short time. I cannot recall any plot detail for most of the contents of the book.
There are two stories that I thought did have full set of beginning, middle and end and they are also the stories that stuck with me the most.
Tell the Women We're Going is a disturbing vignette. It has a particularly subtle way of telling a very unsubtle story. He builds tension beautifully in the second half of the story. The last line of the story is a masterpiece of understated brutality.
Similarly, Popular Mechanics has a last line that hits hard in a backhanded way. In just three pages he gives us a deeply shocking and disturbing story. this is the story that has stuck with me most from the collection.
I don't think this is a BAD collection of stories. I've read far far worse, and as I said, I like the prose. I just found it overall a little underwhelming and forgettable. It subceeded my expectations by quite a distance. I might try more Carver in future. He won't be very high on the TBR pile though.
