On "What Happens When The Mipods Leave Their Milieu" by Elizabeth Crane (4644 words) ***

I've been a fan of Elizabeth Crane's fiction since soon after her first book came out. Her first two books carried a very distinctive style consisting in long sentences in which she raved or complained or maybe just listed things but really just processed her--or rather her narrator's--thoughts so that you had the feeling you were listening in not just to thoughts but to some person's mildly insane musings, perhaps told to you over coffee, or read on the Web somewhere, like this, only not this particular site specifically because I'm not insane--I promise--even if someone says otherwise, someone who obviously doesn't know me. . . . Anyway, this story doesn't do that. It's a departure, in that sense, from what I'm used to from her. But it's also a pleasure. Crane has rarely been as funny. And what makes the humor even better here is that her observations seem, in some ways, quite trenchant. Meet the Mipods, a couple whose simplicity is taken for--surely--something much more than that. Read the story here at Five Chapters.