SOURCE: "Bad Art, Good Entertainment," in The Hudson Review, Vol. XLVII, No. 2, Summer, 1994, pp. 304-05.

In the following review, Krist remarks unfavorably on Butterfly Stories, arguing that Vollmann's overarching cynicism and contempt for the protagonist is unrelieved by brief moments of beautiful writing.

[I read] Butterfly Stories this quarter, a book that (despite its title) is a novel—and a novel that certainly no one would confuse with entertainment. The author's name, William Vollmann, may be familiar, since he's been producing books at a feverish rate: eight in just the past few years (and a ninth is on its way even as I write this). He's a writer who appears to take big chances, wrestling with grand brawny subjects in a sometimes baroque, sometimes hallucinatory prose that has inspired all sorts of reviewer hyperbole. But if Butterfly is any indication, the chance-taking of Vollmann's work is largely bravado...