Status Updates From In the Heart of the Heart o...

"Order of Insects" - 3 - the Gass Man takes a stab at a Clarice Lispector story. it's not bad, but CL is super judicious about heavy turns of phrase; with WHG, getting at least one "the washing machine's obscure disease may reoccur" into every paragraph is just part of the process.

"Icicles" - 3 - resisted a lower rating because of how ably WHG captures a bright wintry day in a boring, dusty office. but this is just a mess otherwise; WHG loses it all in his whopperjawed pursuit of impressionistic interiority and his exuberant jittery prose feels totally ridiculous.

"Mrs. Mean" - 4.5 - loved this small-town witch story. a malicious reader would say this is about the narrator's descent--no: this is about the voyeurism and meanness that lies in all our hearts that we can only survey in others till it last overwhelms us. here WHG's voice is didactic, revelatory, weird; it is that of the lorekeeper or lawgiver. okay sometimes it's a little goofy.

"The Pedersen Kid" - 4.5 - a harrowing encounter at the Threshold of It All. the frozen naked child, a man upending a chamberpot on his charge, doom in a shattered bottle, the blue tunnel in the snow. the Ice Monster. unparalleled imagery and lyricism, though it very very occasionally stutters in its pursuit of rhythm.