Stories full of promise
BULLETPROOF GIRL
By Quinn Dalton. Washington Square. 224 pages. $12
Quinn Dalton lives now in Greensboro but spent several years in Ohio. Both places -- among many others -- figure in her debut collection of short stories, "Bulletproof Girl." The collection's success is as mixed as its settings -- it has much to offer but cannot quite follow through on its promise.
Most successful are the shorter pieces: They are more controlled, witty, telling. I liked "Graceland," where an embittered wife plots to kill her husband's former boss, telling the grim story as if she's describing how she got a new deck built. Or "How to Clean Your Apartment," a funny story that's really about how to throw the man out of your heart when you can't quite bear to part with him.
Other stories don't work as well: "Endurance Tests" is an interesting account of a single mother's struggle to rear her son, but the title metaphor that moves through the piece, based on a childhood game, is a little too obvious and flattens the story's tension.
In stories ranging from funny to mawkish, insightful to overly-long, "Bulletproof Girl" shows great potential that the reader feels will soon be met. -- JEAN BLISH SIERS, FOR THE OBSERVER