The structure of a typical Purdy short story has … [an epiphanic effect]: a selected moment or series of moments that body forth a spiritual or psychological state of exalted confrontation between one person who is in extremis, and an auditor who is deeply but always powerlessly perceptive….

Of Purdy's twenty-two collected short stories in Color of Darkness and Children Is All, fourteen (roughly two-thirds) are … "duologues," conversational confrontations between two persons, and some of the longer works, like the novella "63: Dream Palace," are built up out of duologues, with only a rare scene involving three speakers. (p. 256)

The eloquently pervasive theme of all of Purdy's works is the failures of love, and these failures have their source in the orphanhood and half-orphanhood of children who, as adults, pass on the anguished, lonely legacy to their own offspring. Purdy's handling of the half-orphan situation employs the brief short story...