Steven's review
Trailerpark
by Russell Banks
Steven's review
Trailerpark by Russell Banks
Steven's review
rating:
bookshelves:
short-stories
I had a difficult time with Bank’s style in this one, primarily his lack of sentence variety: he stuck with long complex sentence types. I liked the premise of the linked stories, using the trailerpark as the linking device. I liked the way the two longer stories, the first and the last in the collection, each contained all of the characters, and how each contained an absurd and humorous situation that demanded all of the characters interact. I also liked that most of the other stories did not take place at the trailerpark. They concerned themselves with revealing something about the characters who lived in the trailerpark, but not necessarily events that were taking place at the trailerpark, or even contemporaneous with the time that the characters were living there. This technique gave Banks a lot of freedom to explore the characters without having to do so within the context of their present circumstance (something he does in the two bookend stories). I liked the cumulative effect...more
