SOURCE: Blais, Madeleine. “The Sly, Sexy Minimalism of Susan Minot's Lust.” Chicago Tribune Books (11 June 1989): 7.

In the following review, Blais assesses the effectiveness of the minimalist style of Lust and Other Stories.

Three years ago, Susan Minot's short, beautiful first novel, Monkeys, established its author as a contemporary voice to reckon with. Although Monkeys had some of the trappings of literary chic—a bare bones, minimalist style and the use of the present tense to describe events that clearly occurred long ago—the book transcended its own trendiness.

Using her trademark style of calm poetry and chiseled essences, in Monkeys Minot delicately expressed all the chaotic and finally touching baggage of family life. But in her new book, Lust and Other Stories, Minot's spare, elegiac manner becomes for the most part, plain spare.

The title story, the book's strongest, is a splendid look at a young girl's sexual...