Word: kaplan
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Divided Chores. Cynics may sneer that a platonic relationship between young men and women is impossible. Yet Valentine and Cole are just two of an increasing number of people who insist that coed, companionable but nonsexual apartment sharing is possible and practical. Reports Joel Kaplan, who runs Washington's The Roommate Exchange: "For people between 21 and 35, there are very few now who won't at least consider a coed-living situation...
...While Kaplan's dialogue generally rings true, her descriptions sometimes seem labored. Most annoying is her virtual addiction to placing two adjectives in front of every noun...
...addition, not all of Kaplan's stories succeed equally well. The title story drags on much too long (it's actually more like a novells) and its length contributes to its dullness. The main problem lies in the story's conception. There isn't enough of Louise in the story, mainly because there isn't much of Louise to begin with. Nevertheless, people's lives seen in all the pettiness of daily detail--filtered through a consciousness that simply absorbs rather than patterns--can get tiresome, even if this very tiresomeness helps to frame the story's message...
...Dragon Lady," on the other hand, seems less convincing than most of Kaplan's other stories, probably because of its setting. While Kaplan excels at capturing the intonations and idiosyncracies of East European refugees, it's harder for her to tellingly depict the problems of growing up Chinese in Vietnam. Or perhaps it's just harder for the reader to empathize with her depiction...
THESE LAPSES, however, seem less important beside Kaplan's achievement. A first-time author, she may need to polish her technique, but she already has at her command no meager arsenal of short-story writing equipment. Above all, these stories display her sure handed ability to sketch character in a few lines of dialogue and her understanding of the delicate juggling act an individual must perform to balance the sharing of other people's lives with the need for one's own private existence...