SOURCE: Shostak, Elizabeth. Review of Doctor of Silence: Fictions, by Robert Kelly. Wilson Library Bulletin 63, no. 1 (September 1988): 81–2.

In the below review of Doctor of Silence, Shostak evaluates Kelly's writing in terms of negative possibility.

Robert Kelly's fictions can perhaps be introduced most easily in terms of what they are not: neither the spare, flat stares at ordinary life associated with minimalism, nor ripping good yarns, these works puzzle and provoke by challenging the conventions of the narrative form itself. Kelly's characters do not behave like ordinary fictional characters, who have recognizable lives (names, occupations, etc.) and who perform recognizable actions; his “fictions” are not constructed with the usual beginning, middle, and end. Enigmatic and complex, with affinities to the likes of Poe, Kafka, and Cortazar, these works ask questions, direct vision, and play with language in a way that manages, most of the time, to heighten our appreciation...