Nancy Reisman is the author of House Fires, a short-story collection that won the 1999 Iowa Short Fiction Award. Her first novel, The First Desire, was published this month by Random House.

Kiss of the Spider Woman by Manuel Puig (Vintage, $13). This is a novel that is almost entirely dialogue—and the dialogue is wonderful. Two men in prison—one a leftist political activist, the other a gay man interested in questions of beauty and romantic love—pass the time with embroidered retellings of the plots of B-movies. Their conversation allows Puig to combine engaging storytelling with an overt questioning of what these stories mean and how they reflect who the tellers are.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up
To continue reading this article...
Continue reading this article and get limited website access each month.
Get unlimited website access, exclusive newsletters plus much more.
Cancel or pause at any time.
Already a subscriber to The Week?
Not sure which email you used for your subscription? Contact us