A Bit Of Literary Caviar, Darlings!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

                                             Can you believe, girls, it has been ten years, since Nell Freudenberger's "Lucky Girls" became the literary event of the Season??????  And I have been promising myself to read it all this time.  Well, I finally have,. and I can safely say, not since "Interpreter Of Maladies" does a short story collection satisfy so well.  Mind you, it is not up to 'Interpreter'--that would be a miracle, indeed!!!!!--but it is in the right class, as far as the caliber of writing and narration goes.

                                                Freudenberger spent a year after college travelling through India, and this represents, I think, a fictionalized account of some of her experiences during these travels.  There are only five stories, but   "The Orphan," and "The Tutor" are the most compelling in plot and themes.  But the piece de resistance is the final story, "Letter from the Last Bastion," chronicling the relationship between a teenage girl and a renowned  writer that fascinates from a literary standpoint, but recalls, to me at least, the swirl of controversy surrounding the Joyce Maynard-J.D. Salinger relationship.  I have to wonder was Miss Freudenbergeer  influenced by that??????????  Or am I the only reader to whom such a  suggestion surfaces??????????  One thing about this story--in its scope and expansiveness, it shows the author is capable of painting on a larger  canvass.  In the years following "Lucky Girls," she has published a novel, "The Dissident," and I look forward avidly to reading that!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

                                                 Maybe in another ten years, loves!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!