Old Friends

This short, moving novel by a beloved former teacher of mine really impressed me. It has the sad and sweet humaneness of a Chekhov tale, tack-sharp details strewn across every page and a brisk narrative momentum the FedEx fast talker might envy. The style is stripped for speed like a tricked-out Civic burning nitrous, much of the art being buried in the deeper tectonic shifts of the narrative. Note for Charlie Kaufman fans: in the original screenplay of Eternal Sunshine, Clementine is twice shown reading a book by Stephen Dixon and tells Joel she likes his work. The kind of branching narrative Kaufman uses in that film is something he might well have picked up from one of Dixon's quietly masterful stories.

i like short reviews so i'll stick to Mr Dixon's own words page 178 as to why i enjoyed his novel : "the humor, timeliness, simple-language, lucid style, great dialogue and lively characters and situation" also, while waiting for a paperback edition, if you manage to find a rare edition of his collected stories, you'll be very lucky