SOURCE: “Life Expectancies,” in West Coast Review, Vol. 22, No. 1, Summer, 1987, pp. 55–69.

In the following review, Giltrow praises Metcalf's skilled use of detail in the stories comprising Adult Entertainment.

To life's phases we all are conscripts, briskly recruited by time and change. Looking back, we scarcely recognize our earlier youthful selves, can barely account for our abandoned views. Looking ahead, we imagine that somehow we will be exempt from the next metamorphosis in outlook and identity, and then we make a fuss when it inevitably arrives.

Those arrivals can be the moment of great stories, mapping the move from one stage to the next: Cinderella leaves the kitchen; Beauty takes up residence with the Beast; Little Thumb comes back with riches and prestige. In the classic tales, these transitions from one life status to another are conclusive, righteous and—especially—individual: although we recognize familiar traits in the heroes'...