In Going Places, Leonard Michaels has given us what must surely be one of the longest 192-page books of short stories ever written. And since this remark, intended as a compliment, may be open to misinterpretation, let me quickly add that the apparent extraordinary length of the volume is the result not of any … longueurs in the work but of a narrative and stylistic density so marked that it causes whole worlds to form, pass through their cycles, and vanish away on a single page. Where, for example, most writers, dedicated to capturing the synaptic leap on paper—but worried, perhaps, about not being understood—work as hard to reproduce the nerve fibers as they do to depict the energy that passes between them, Michaels, in some sort of haunted hurry (going places?), concentrates entirely on rendering the electric charge as it jumps the gap. (p. 422)

Taken together...