Word: hecht
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Knowing when to say nothing is important," confides the female narrator of the nine short stories that make up Julie Hecht's Do the Windows Open? (Random House; 212 pages; $21). "And," she adds, "I haven't learned that...
This juxtaposition--what should be done set against the difficulty of actually doing it--underscores the comic principle that animates Hecht's first collection of fiction. Her narrator ought to be happy, or at least fulfilled. She and her architect husband have an apartment in Manhattan, a house in East Hampton and a summer rental on Nantucket. She can afford a small army of expensive people--psychiatrists, opticians, periodontists, endodontists, exercise trainers, floor renovators--to minister to her and her possessions' needs. Yet in spite of all this--or perhaps because of it--she is a psychological wreck...
...repeated, obsessive references to her reproductive surgeon betray the narrator's deepest concern without, apparently, her being aware of the disclosure. Whatever Dr. Loquesto was supposed to do for her somehow did not work, in a way she doesn't explain. She is 40 and childless, and Hecht has subtly grounded all these remarkably funny and engaging stories in the fundamental sadness of mortality...
...BOOKS . . . DO THE WINDOWS OPEN? The juxtaposition of what should be done set against the difficulty of actually doing it underscores the comic principle that animates Julie Hecht's first collection of fiction (Random House; 212 pages; $21). Her narrator ought to be happy, or at least fulfilled. She and her architect husband have an apartment in Manhattan, a house in East Hampton and a summer rental on Nantucket. She can afford a small army of expensive people -- psychiatrists, opticians, periodontists, endodontists, exercise trainers, floor renovators -- to minister to her and her possessions? needs. Yet in spite of all this...
...BOOKS . . . DO THE WINDOWS OPEN? The juxtaposition of what should be done set against the difficulty of actually doing it underscores the comic principle that animates Julie Hecht's first collection of fiction (Random House; 212 pages; $21). Her narrator ought to be happy, or at least fulfilled. She and her architect husband have an apartment in Manhattan, a house in East Hampton and a summer rental on Nantucket. She can afford a small army of expensive people -- psychiatrists, opticians, periodontists, endodontists, exercise trainers, floor renovators -- to minister to her and her possessions? needs. Yet in spite of all this...