SOURCE: "Short Takes," in New York Times Book Review, May 5, 1996, p. 22.

[Below, Harshaw gives a mixed review of Women in Their Beds. He praises the prose, but finds the characters too static.]

As an alternative to those trivial compendiums of literary opening passages sold near bookstore cash registers, how about a collection of last lines from Gina Berriault's very short stories, Women in Their Beds: New and Selected Stories. Consider this stand-alone triumph: "He lay facedown under the tree and bit off some grass near the roots, chewing to distract his smile, but it would not give in, and so he lay there the entire day, smiling into the earth." Or: "She heard his breath take over for him and, in that secretive way the sleeper knows nothing about, carry on his life." Ms. Berriault is nothing if not consistent. In these 35 stories, one struggles to find a...