SOURCE: Bloom, Alice. “Shorted Out.” The Hudson Review 40, no. 2 (summer 1987): 323, 329-30.

In the following excerpt, Bloom gives a positive review of Childhood and Other Neighborhoods.

I've just read 312 new short stories—American, European, Latin American. As a review is on some level a piece of advice anyway (buy, read, take seriously, etc., or don't) I'll begin with my piece and say: don't do this, don't read 312 or even 12 in a row. One, well okay, three stuffed mushrooms, a few brief interesting or amusing conversations, make for a pretty good stand-up party. But after 312 however savoury niblets of taste and talk one is both bloated and undernourished, muzzy, as though deprived of deep sleep (long talks, whole sit-down meals, a novel). Pick another metaphor and say, like a single yellow rose, a short story shows up best in the mind if placed against a relatively bare background.

I'd go...