AND CONSIDER THIS:
Shop Girl A Novella
by Steve Martin
Hyperion; 130 pages; $17.95
This slight, sexy,
smart, funny little book is touted as a novella, but it's really
like an expanded short story. Anyone familiar with Martin's pieces
in the New Yorker won't be surprised to discover that he can write,
but what does surprise is his ability to get inside the heart
and mind of his female character and make her so believable. Shop
Girl is no confessional, first person tale. It is all author-as-omniscient-narrator
who tells us not only what happens, but what each of his characters
is thinking, often to great comic effect.
If you're offended
by multiple use of the "f" word, or by direct descriptions of
various sex acts, this isn't the book for you. Martin isn't trying
to be prurient, but his matter-of-fact take on the world of singles
on the make may offend some readers.
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