[Previous entry: "Various Beatings I Have Taken"] [Next entry: "Harbourfront Festival of Authors"]
10/20/2005: "Library Journal Review"
Here's a review I was sent recently. It's from the Library Journal. I'm happily surprised that a reviewer with the name of Prudence found something to enjoy about the collection. Perhaps I can expect to receive fan mail from all the Hetties and Gertrudes and Betsies and Helgas and Brunettas out there as well? That would be the living end! I shouldn't be like that: I'm sure Prudence is a lovely woman, and I thank her for the nice review.
LIBRARY JOURNAL:
Davidson's forceful debut collection arrives like a jab to the jaw from one of his colorful characters. Sometimes masochistic, always muscled in the diction of the men who people them, the stories are impossible to ignore. Davidson brings us hard men—alcoholic fathers, sex-addicted porn stars, boxers, a repo man, a magician who deserts his two children—without patronizing them or their extreme conditions. He is as adept at the humorous interplay of personality in a sex addicts anonymous meeting (in Friction) as he is in describing a vicious dogfight (in the excellent A Mean Utility). There are also quiet moments of grace, particularly in An Apprentice's Guide to Modern Magic and On Sleepless Roads. Even when Davidson pushes the limits of what a reader can stomach, he never loses our attention or our empathy. Recommended as a young writer to watch.—Prudence Peiffer, Cambridge, MA Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.