SHORT STORIES

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32803, 31 December 1971, Page 8

SHORT STORIES

Almost Home. By Jonathan Schwartz. Michael Joseph. 225 pp. Jonathan Schwartz is a young American writer with a considerable talent. His stories have appeared in many reputable publications including the “Transatlantic Review" and in “Almost Home” the reader is presented with a collection of 13 short stories of a very high standard indeed. Despite the fact that all of the stories deal with very different situations and different characters the over-all effect of the book is one of unity, not one of 13 separate and distinct parts. There are a number of reasons for this. Mainly, however, it is because although all the situations are different the basic problem is always the same. Jonathan Schwartz is concerned with the inability of human beings to communi- ■ cate adequately their inner emotions and thoughts. So in these stories as in life, happiness is never entirely complete, nor tragedy wholly black; the significant things are the little gestures, the small frustrations, tne • glimpses of love or loneliness. Mr Schwartz is adept at conveying the significance of these with a gentle yet sure touch and with an insight and compassion which makes not the individual stories, but their total impression a haunting and memorable one. The divorced couple meeting again years after their brief youthful marriage, the adolescent boy desperately in love, the married couple quarrelling after an unsuccessful week-end visit—these and other characters allow the author to explore and suggest the complicated motivation behind everyday acts and conversations. The stories are beauti-. fully written, achieving their effect by • constant understatement and delicate nuance rather than by obvious drama- • tics.