It seems like every time I'm about to proclaim Katherine Anne Porter the best writer of her era, I stumble upon one of her enormous, stinking turds. Not like the stories here, among her earliest, should be stamped in gold or something, but the way she draws her characters is nothing short of exquisite—a frustrated artist, a dying woman, an Irish (County Sligo) immigrant living in Connecticut, a Mexican bride-turned-murderer, a 15-year-old Mexican girl who's never been kissed, a Mexican revolutionary's female confidant, a husband and wife who get into an enormous fight after he randomly decides to buy rope—the people and their relationships are all so finely detailed, densely woven, and true-to-life they carry you through some rather thin narratives. I'd imagine a writer, like any craftsman, who masters the basics would become eager to take bigger and bigger swings. And here her big swing is a huge whiff, a convoluted, overcrowded story about Russian filmmakers from California working in Mexico that pretty much bored me to tears (for the record, her later enormous swings in "Pale Horse, Pale Rider" knock it out clear of the park.) I guess I can't in good faith say you should all run out and read this book, unless you happen to want to study the characterization techniques of someone who probably did it better than anyone. So, yes, that’s right, most of the stories here feel like little more than character sketches but, I gotta say, they're pretty god damn great sketches. Three stars.