SOURCE: “Short and to the Point,” in Women's Review of Books, Vol. 3, No. 11, August, 1986, p. 12.

In the following excerpt, Rich offers descriptions of the stories in Nine Women, and comments on Grau's treatment of themes.

After poetry, short fiction is the most exacting form of literature. There is time and space, within the pages of even the slimmest novel, to explore and expand character and plot, and should one chapter disappoint, the author may be redeemed in the next. No such dispensations are bestowed upon short story writers. Each word must “tell.” The time-frame is finite, as is the forbearance of the reader, who has every reason to expect that the turning of the last page will produce some altered state of awareness. The litmus test of a story's value may well lie in how long such a modification lasts, how long the reader views her world in...