Coover's story is "stunning"

That's how a writer friend in Paris describes it after I sent her the link. Man, it has been a very, very long time -- since the 60s and Gilbert Sorrentino's story "The Moon In Its Flight" -- since a short story has hit me so powerfully. I keep rereading it in total awe at the literary accomplishment. This story, like Sorrentino's, reaches a level all its own and makes "realistic" fiction seem, well, almost quaint. The truth here is delivered in such an original, quick, instant way, it's yes stunning. Stunning. Best story I've ever read about what Thoreau called man's "lives of quiet desperation."

In contrast, the Sorrentino story is about first love. I can still remember the last line, at least to paraphrase it. The first love doesn't go into the future but many years later the lovers meet and go to a hotel room. Then he goes home to his wife. Sorrentino writes something like, I know you'll accuse me of sloppy writing when I say she told him he was white as a ghost but that's exactly what she said. Art cannot rescue anybody from anything.

Pow! I stand in awe of Sorrentino and Coover.