On "Live Cargo" by Paul Toutonghi ***

I read this collection because a review described it as a collection of "cubist" stories. I was curious about the description, and it seems applicable. Each story is broken into fragments, mostly tiny, and the first story is even about Picasso. I used to do quite a bit of the fragmented writing myself about ten years ago. I liked the intellectual exercise of putting a story together. But as I've gotten older, I've become more and more a fan of straight stories. I prefer the heartfelt to the intellectual. Both put together, of course, is best of all. The unfortunate thing about this collection--and with fragmented stories in general--is that it's hard to build up emotional resonance when stories are clipped into such abbreviated sections. Toutonghi achieves his best work when he somehow manages to connect to the reader. This happened, suprisingly, best in some of the stories that had not been previously published. My favorite was "A Letter from the Margins of the Year," about an alcoholic professor trying to woo his wife back using baseball and an injured bird. Other strong stories included the unlikely "The Liars" (at least, I hope such a situation is unlikely) and "The Lives of the Saints" and "A Map of the Air," both about lonely people. I wish the other stories could have stuck with me as much as that favorite one, however.