SOURCE: French, Sean. “Culture Clashes, Sex Wars.” New Statesman & Society 3, no. 90 (2 March 1990): 33.

In the following excerpt, French examines the theme and tone of Lust and Other Stories, praising the collection's subject matter, but questioning its sense of decorum.

It's virtually impossible for a true writer to believe in cultural purity. Meetings and minglings of religion and race are simply too good a subject. Henry V isn't in the end a jingoistic play because Shakespeare enjoys too much the promiscuous play between English, French and the different British dialects. George Orwell noted that Kipling was distrusted by the English imperial administrators because while in India “he tended to mix with the wrong people.”

Multiculturalism may be deplored by politicians and leader writers but for our best writers it's simply where the action is. …

Susan Minot's stories [in Lust and Other Stories] are enjoyable too, though in a very different...