SOURCE: Penner, Jonathan. “Amazing Tales from the Check-Out Line.” Washington Post Book World 26, no. 45 (10 November 1996): 1, 12.

In the following review, Penner praises Butler for creating stories in Tabloid Dreams that poignantly examine such issues as human folly, rage, and grief.

Tabloid Dreams is a story cycle, a clutch of tales spawned together. Though narrative links join only two, all 12 stories have a family feature: Each is based upon a premise—stated in its title—that suggests a tabloid headline.

There are those that exploit cultural fixations on JFK and Elvis, those that report Titanic survivors and close encounters with extraterrestrials. Many chronicle spectacular miscarriages of love—“Woman Uses Glass Eye to Spy on Philandering Husband,” “Woman Hit by Car Turns Into Nymphomaniac,” “Every Man She Kisses Dies.”

Tabloid stories are sideshow freaks. They recount suffering so bizarre, and offenses of such enormity, that we can only laugh in horror...