That's True of Everybody

Rating:
Summary: A major writer, fully in stride
Review: I began reading Winegardner's work after hearing him read his funny and disturbing story "Keegan's Load" in front of a truly wowed crowd of about 1000 people here in Madison, Wisconsin. I bought his story collection that day, and was frankly shocked that all of it was as good as that story. I don't remember taking so much pleasure in discovering a writer since I first read Lorrie Moore. Since then, I have read both his novels -- The Veracruz Blues (excellent) and Crooked River Burning (a masterpiece). Winegardner is about to become pretty famous, once his sequel to THE GODFATHER comes out. He's a much better writer than Mario Puzo, so prepare yourselves. In the meantime, read this book now so that once Winegardner hits it big, you can pride yourself on being ahead of the curve.

Rating:
Summary: best collection I've read in 5 years
Review: I first read Winegardner with his epic, brilliant novel CROOKED RIVER BURNING, a book I can't recomment highly enough. It was a pleasure, and even a shock, to see him as at home writing short stories as he is writing a big, visionary novel.

I'm not sure if there's any American writer who's been shortlisted as often for Best American and other prize anthologies and been overlooked by the annual judge. But it's important to note that the stories here that have had such attention--"Keegan's Load," "Song for a Certain Girl," "That's True of Everybody" (which appeared in TriQuarterly and is collected here as "The Untenured Lecturer") and "Ace of Hearts" are, as a group, as good a quartet of stellar stories as you're going to see from any writer the past five years.

I very rarely give 5 stars to books, but this one blew me away.

Rating:
Summary: Enormous heart and skill
Review: This is a hell of a good book: audacious without being showoffy, full of heart without ever stooping to sentimentality. The first story, "Thirty-Year-Old Women Do Not Always Come Home," is a particular stunner: that rarest of short stories--the sort that manages to get a 300-page novel into a 20-page story, without the effort ever showing.

Many of these stories have showed up as Distinguished Stories in Best American Short Stories, and one, "Keegan's Load,"is in the new New Stories from the South (2003). He'll be a regular in those annuals for years, I bet -- unless he does such a good job with the sequel to The Godfather (don't be surprised if it's better than Puzo's) that he sticks to novels from here on. I doubt that, though. No one with this much evident love for short stories is likely to abandon the form.