欧宝娱乐

On the whole, Bennett Sims' short stories read less like narrative pieces of fiction and more like formally playful thought experiments. That means they're probably not for everyone, but if your interest is piqued by the use of banal events/objects/observations as vehicles to delve into almost obsessive psychological and linguistic analysis, you're gonna love this book.

The opening story is a haunting slow burner about isolation and the effect of one's environment on the psyche, and the titular closing story is a scathingly hilarious (and fascinating) indictment of academic ego and pretension. Though the stories in between are just as diverse as the bookends, the collection's title, White Dialogues, is an aptly self-aware one, as the stories collectively plumb the depths of a brand of paranoia that's typically only afforded to people of privilege. It's something that's been written about many times over, but not quite like this.

I'm eager to pick up Sims' novel A Questionable Shape and check out other Two Dollar Radio offerings in the near future.