Review: Lauren Groff is required reading: Her newest stories prove shes among the best in the game
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Book ReviewBrawler By Lauren GroffRiverhead Books: 288 pages, $29If you buy books linked on our site, The Times may earn a commission from Bookshop.org, whose fees support independent bookstores.The stories in Lauren Groff’s third collection, “Brawler,” largely feature people who’ve hit crisis points in their lives: the abusive partner, the natural disaster, the relapse, the deathbed.This is as it ought to be with short stories, which have to make their points in a relative hurry.
Groff, a perpetual bestseller, is gifted at that: Her previous collection, “Florida,” was a National Book Award finalist, along with two of her other books that earned the honor.But there are few things Groff appreciates more as a writer than a history lesson — her books have reached back to medieval times, the New World, the Civil War, the Spanish Flu, and beyond, often tracking her heroes across decades.These should be conflicting instincts, but in “Brawler,” Groff successfully blends the depth of the long view and the drama of the pivotal moment.Two of the stories here, among her best, exemplify that skill.
“What’s the Time, Mr.Wolf?” focuses on Chip, a ne’er-do-well scion of a wealthy New Hampshire banking family where “everything had been decided for him long before he was born.” Privilege has made him soft, and a cushy but dispiriting job in the family business has helped stoke his alcoholism.
At the urging of his sister, he retreats to a family cottage, where he intends to detox and dedicate his time to repairing the home’s many flaws.Books Lauren Groff’s latest novel, ‘The Vaster Wilds,’ continues her reinvention of historical adventure tales that ask what it takes for women to survive.So far, so neatly symbolic.
But a disruption for Chip’s self-imposed rehab — and for narrative expectations — arrives in the form of a woman named Pearl Spang.She t...