The Complete Stories of Dorothy Parker - Dorothy Parker > Reviews > No-one ever reads it - sound familiar?

Author's product rating:   

Advantages:	Concise, honest style of writing, modern themes
Disadvantages:	Difficult to get hold of the book because not many people are familiar with the author

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

If anyone has heard of Dorothy Parker at all, it is usually because she has cropped up in a Dictionary of Quotations flinging around the kind of acidic, perfectly timed and devastatingly clever insults that everyone else wishes they could think of. The sum total of her writings is not great considering that in spite of suicide attempts she lived for over 70 years, but it is neverthless surprising that they are not better known and admired. Her poems show the same concise wit and originality as the epigrams for which she is famous, while her short stories are funny, modern and often desperately moving. Sometimes monologues, sometimes duologues and sometimes omnisciently narrated, the stories use an honest simplicity of language to reflect the poignancy, isolation and brutality of life. In my opinion, Dorothy Parker is one of the best writers of the 20th century and it is a shame that she is not more widely read.