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karencarlson's review
3.25
The five stories in this collection, published in 1982, vary wildly. The title story is subtle and thoughtful; the closing story is more direct, but also implies more than it says. One of the shortest storis is so introverted it nearly disappears. And then there are the two bawdy tales: one veers into absurd satiric humor.
While these more raucous stories aren’t my cup of tea, I have to admire Prager’s range: she’s able to go from exquisite subtlety of the Footbinder to conversational drama of Linen to the broadest bawdy humor. And yet, even in that humor, she captures recognizable moments of truth. If Prager’s mission was to highlight the social pressures women face, she succeeded, and it’s only because that territory has been well-trod in the forty years since publication that it sometimes falls a bit flat.
FMI see my blog post at A Just Recompense.
While these more raucous stories aren’t my cup of tea, I have to admire Prager’s range: she’s able to go from exquisite subtlety of the Footbinder to conversational drama of Linen to the broadest bawdy humor. And yet, even in that humor, she captures recognizable moments of truth. If Prager’s mission was to highlight the social pressures women face, she succeeded, and it’s only because that territory has been well-trod in the forty years since publication that it sometimes falls a bit flat.
FMI see my blog post at A Just Recompense.
manwithanagenda's review
dark
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Short story collections are often uneven, and 'A Visit from the Footbinder' is no different, but as I flip through its pages now and tick off the titles of the five stories and reread the epigraph from 'Lysistrata', I realize that Prager accomplished a lot here. Even where the stories weren't necessarily following any normal trajectory, or making very much sense, I still appreciated Prager's fun twists on feminist commentary and storytelling.
The stories are widely different in style and content, ranging from the troubling elegant title story, to the reunion rituals of "The Alumnae Bulletin" and the bizarre, provoking mess that was "The Lincoln-Pruitt Anti-Rape Device", I liked them all because of how they play off of each other and create a concise picture of feminism in transition from the early drive toward a universal ideal for women and the modern understanding of the necessity of diverse approaches and the different needs for different communities.
In some ways, like many of the Vintage Contemporaries I read, this is an artifact of the 80s and won't have the impact to a reader now that it did thirty years ago, but it does holds up better than most.
The stories are widely different in style and content, ranging from the troubling elegant title story, to the reunion rituals of "The Alumnae Bulletin" and the bizarre, provoking mess that was "The Lincoln-Pruitt Anti-Rape Device", I liked them all because of how they play off of each other and create a concise picture of feminism in transition from the early drive toward a universal ideal for women and the modern understanding of the necessity of diverse approaches and the different needs for different communities.
In some ways, like many of the Vintage Contemporaries I read, this is an artifact of the 80s and won't have the impact to a reader now that it did thirty years ago, but it does holds up better than most.
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