Reviews

Going For a Beer: Selected Short Fictions by Robert Coover

astroneatly's review

challenging dark funny lighthearted medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

jjames007's review against another edition

A drunken, fast-forward reminiscence of life...

mimistromauthor's review against another edition

1.0

I couldn't get through this short story collection by Robert Coover. I read 6 of the 30 short stories and found them all to be disgusting, offensive, and confusing.

There was no solid timeline in any of these stories and (as a woman) I found myself insulted. I feel the female characters were only added in to show off their bodies. (Granted, the stories I read were written in the 1960s, but that doesn't give the author the right to treat his woman characters like objects) I am never going to pick up another book by this author again.

kesterbird's review

5.0

I listened to this, rather than reading it. It's almost hard to hear. While much of Coover's writing is dreamlike and distant, this one is hard and close and sharply edged. It still has that element of being not quite real, but in this one that lack of reality is used much like linear perspective might be in an architectural drawing- the fantasy makes it more true, not less.

mercourier's review

I found many of the stories frustrating (due to all the time shifting and various points of view) which I know is the point of his writing. Also ALL of them somehow centered on the male genitalia and it felt like being sexually harassed as I was reading. 

poultrymunitions's review

4.0

the short form at its best.

crazy ideas, fearless devices... short enough to keep from bashing your head open, and long enough to make the point. i loved it.