In the Walled City: Stories

I absolutely loved O'Nan's "A Prayer for the Dying," so naturally I had to go back to his first book to see where he began. Although I managed to find a copy...The twelve stories included in this collection are interesting. O'Nan shows a talent for giving us the same story through different perspectives, and his language is beautiful at times, but the collection seems to be a mixed bag. The two stories that I would consider rather weak are "Mr. Wu Thinks" and "The Third of July." It seems in these two stories mainly that O'Nan gives us something but doesn't really lead it into a pleasing direction. I kept wishing these two stories would go somewhere interesting. Both do manage to give us a lot of insight into their characters, but the ten other stories in the collection are superb and do a much better job of delving into the darkness of the human spirit.I would actively search for this collection of stories. O'Nan almost had a perfect collection of stories on his hand, but even so, the vast majority of these stories are excellent and worth the purchase.