SOURCE: “Diet Fiction,” in New York, March 15, 1999, pp. 59-60.

In the following review, Kirn finds that Intimacy achieves only a “handsome tedium.”

Size matters in fiction, but so does lack of size. Everything else being equal, fat novels tend to be perceived as serious, very thin ones as more honest, more real. Writers address these age-old expectations by filling their big books with philosophy and cramming their little ones with feeling. Lately, it’s the massive efforts that have gotten more attention, but that may be changing. Witness two new miniatures published by the same company, Scribners, and promoted for their supposed authenticity. Sized to fit on a key chain and packaged to resemble tiny fashion accessories, one book is said on its jacket to be “searing,” the other “wrenching.” Appearances deceive, though.

The searing novel is Hanif Kureishi’s Intimacy, whose title is both immodest and modest...