Jailbait and Other Stories

The ten stories in Brad Gooch's first book of prose are as contemporary as an overheard phone call. Don't expect complicated plots, in-depth conversations, moments of acute psychological analysis. Instead the author gives us a voyeuristic look at some tough people caught in private (slightly embarrassing) moments. Seen as if through the windows of an apartment building. Speaking the pared-down dialogue of a TV show or movie. Gooch's style--spare, hesitant, factual, sensual, polished--allows the primitive storytelling back in; we feel the propelling undertow of his characters' desires and impulses. Jailbait and Other Stories is unquestionably a text of an for the Eighties.