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Title: Poor Follow Up to "First Love and Other Sorrows"
Review: I'm reminded of the Native American character in the Jim Jarsmuch movie, "Dead Man" whose name is something along the lines of "He who talks alot but says very little."I read First Love and Other Sorrows before this and was outraged that more people hadn't heard of this guy. Brodkey was around 25 or 26 when that first collection was published and sadly he hadn't learned much in the 20 or 30 intervening years. Except how to overwrite.Can't remember the title but there was one story about a guy trying to give a woman an orgasm that may have the most mechanical and unintentionally funny descriptions of sex this side of Norman Mailer.A weird combo of Updike and Mailer at their pompous "great writer" worst.Even so, even bad Brodkey has its moments.
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