A review by natbmuser
Pure Hollywood: And Other Stories by Christine Schutt

dark emotional mysterious reflective slow-paced

3.0

In the first story of this collection, a young widow hides from a gardener waiting to be paid. The narrative moves away from this conflict when the woman decides to search for her mother's old house with a cactus garden in the yard, but for me the presence of the forgotten caretaker remains throughout the rest of the short story and throughout the rest of this collection. The prose is snipped. The language fragrant. People are neglected plants. This is certainly a book I'd recommend to gardeners. Although I liked it and was impressed with how much each story seemed to haunt the next, I couldn't quite picture it all. It muddled together in the end.