Do the Windows Open?

It's so comforting to know that there are other neurotic people out there! This book is a laugh-riot. I loaned it to my friend, and she loved it so much that after she read it, she went and bought a copy. When she gave it back, I reread it and laughed just as hard the 2nd time. It's genuinely hilarious if you are the type of person who can agonize and analyze forever.

I am always hesitant to recommend fiction to other people because enjoyment of fiction is so subjective and so personal. I feel so strongly about the stories of Julie Hecht, though, that I had to write this review. When I see an issue of "The New Yorker" that has a new Hecht story it just makes my whole week. It is hard to define her style but perhaps calling her the Steven Wright of short story writers would give you some idea! She makes the most oddball but humorous (in a bittersweet way) observations using a deadpan delivery. Her narrator, always the same person in all stories, is alienated and lonely and neurotic but touching and engaging because of her humor and intelligence. Hecht's stories have no grand themes and contain no momentous events. She writes of the mundane daily activities of her protagonist: going to the health food store; riding on a bus; a visit to the doctor. The activities are not important; it is Hecht's observations of other people that will resonate within you. If you enjoy lowkey writing which is concerned with the behavior of everyday people I think you will enjoy these stories as much as I did. I can't wait for Ms. Hecht's next collection of stories. Unfortunately, I think it will be awhile as her stories come out very infrequently!

Thank God for this book. When I first encountered it I had nearly teetered into the abyss of believing that the way we live now has a rational underpinning. Julie Hecht possesses a brilliance that is at once undeniable and subtle. She sees things. To her critics, I can only say that worthwhile literature is not required to have formulaic plotting, at least in the traditional sense. Something doesn't have to "happen." Characters don't have to be drawn with giant magic markers. There is great power in the small. The quiet voice. To those who prefer the opposite, get a Tom Clancy book.

Julie Hecht's debut collection introduces a narrator with a voice and awareness by far funnier and more beguiling than any I have read. She is tactful, alienated, melancholy and hilarious, without ever indulging the confessional; that is, the tour we take is in her world, not merely in her mind. She is a guide through the insanity of the mundane, sure of her mark and always fresh. Writing like this is a reminder of what we all orinally loved in literature: the bliss of taking in a life other than our own