Wilds Times

I gave Julia Elliott's short story collection The Wilds a bit of a rave some weeks ago, amidst interviewing her for the Free-Times. I loved her wit, her tangy prose, skewed perspective, and fervid imagination.

I was pleased to read just now that the book also snagged a brief New York Times review by Benjamin Nugent. He was more divided over the book than I was. In the first half of his paragraph, he thinks she's read so much George Saunders she sounds tipsy; in the second half, he talks of her finding her voice, writing of the flesh, building to an ingenious climax, fashioning angular phrases and, best of all, making "us hear contemporary English in a new way."

All good, all true, hope it leads to bigger and better things.