RaveCulture VultureWithout sacrificing his flair for brainy surreal prose and dead-on social satire, which have on occasion seemed like ends in themselves, Wallace has added a stronger than usual emphasis on narrative drive and ingenious plotting. Consistently impressive is his much-admired talent for bringing a plaintive three-dimensionality to the inner lives of his characters ... A masterpiece of heart-stopping brevity, \'Incarnations of Burned Children\' concerns the frantic efforts of a mother and father to console their infant son who has been severely scalded from an overturned pot of boiling water on the stove ... Sometimes Wallace\'s relentless quest for offbeat material can become tedious and self-indulgent on the page. The collection\'s opening piece, \'Mister Squishy,\' relies rather too heavily on the drone of acronym-laden corporate-speak at a Chicago ad agency ... While alienation and despair remain key themes, his characters are so richly drawn that they behave less like pawns of injustice or fate than tragic purveyors of their own limitations.
