Jan Priddy’s Reviews > The Age of Grief > Status Update

Ended better than I expected.

Depth of tread should be at least 11". Width of tread is side to side—there are codes for that too, and the requirement for and height of railing, and pretty much everything else. The goal is safety. But if the character had actually worked construction, he'd know all that.

Main stairs, sure, but attic, basement, back stairs? Not so much. The s1919 stairs in our Seattle house didn't follow the rule. It's code now.

Smiley cites "the 17-inch rule" which I learned as the "17 1/2 inch rule" [11" and 6.5") and is called today the "17-18 inch rule" for the combined depth of tread (not the width) + height of riser. The character could not have measured old houses and found this 17" rule to be absolutely consistent in old houses, because it wasn't. Tread depth matters more, and consistency in a flight of stairs matters most of all.

I do remember this one/ but thirty-odd years on I find the pronouncements of this novella... wrong?

"Dynamite" is not mentioned in the back cover copy. I don't know what to say about it here. Does it represent a possible story of an American terrorist bomber? I don't care.

Did I read this when I bought the book at the end of the 1980s? I rarely gave up on books in those days, recall not caring for this one, though I loved Orindary Love & Good Will first published two years later.

Despite driving through a blizzard, "Long Distance" is precise only about interior landscapes. On the other hand: "Patriarchy" is reviled (74). Another sad story and an empty, yearning life. ±that's probably too harsh.

If genders were reversed, this last, "Jeffrey, Believe Me," would be a story about rape. Smiley is rarely kind and these stories are center on 30ish, lonely, child-hungry, and not very interesting white people.

When I first read them, I didn't appreciate that she was ahead of her time (stories dating 1977-1987) with Lesbian and gay characters, but then again, I'd had gay and Lesbian friends since high school.

"Lily" awful people.

The story about Smiley is that in grad school she made a list of books to write (a Shakespearean tragedy and a comedy, a mystery, etc.) and then proceeded to write them all. I know I read this long ago, but it's one of the few that failed to leave an impression.

I don't know what to say about the first story. I know someone who lived it.