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Reviews:
Publishers Weekly
"Most of the male characters who appear in the 11 stories in this collection-which won the 1995 Drue Heinz Literature Prize-are as dangerous to themselves as they are to others. In the title story, Becker achieves the perfect blend of humor and menace as three tripping teenagers stumble though Boston on the night of Nixon's resignation, undecided about whether to go ``fag''-bashing or do their music homework. Violence-or the threat of it-figures heavily in these stories. In ``Magister Ludi,'' Duney, a straight-laced high-school senior, goes to a quarry for a swim with Riggy, an older musician whom she barely knows; when his pursuit of her threatens to turn forceful, she gets scared until she realizes she can swim circles around him ("she thinks she has never felt more in control in her life''). In "Taxes,'' Pretzel, a black teenager who runs errands for an elderly Jewish man, must decide whom to defend when his brother tries to rob his employer. On the goofier side, there's "The Handstand Man,'' in which 30-something Jimi-John Houser tries to save a dying romance by turning the living room of his tiny New York City apartment into a beach. Becker's cast includes aging, struggling musicians, drifters and petty criminals. In smooth, careful prose, he delineates his ethnically diverse characters with lucid empathy and renders moments of their lives taut and compelling."
Rand Richards Cooper, The New York Times:
“Writing like this doesn’t call attention to itself. Instead, it quietly goes about its work, building that dense texture of private associations that yields characters a reader feels the author “knows.” This is a realism of close focus, observantly tracking the ways people chart their own predicaments, using odd tools picked up here, there and everywhere along the way of their lives.”
BookList - Bonnie Smothers
"Becker is the 1995 winner of the Drue Heinz Literature Prize, and as expected, is a savvy writer, but he is also very shrewd and unerring as he homes in on the nature of aspirations. His sensitivity to our yearnings, especially when we are young, is strongly manifested in his dramatic renderings of desires for freedom or innocence: Jimi-John in "The Handstand Man" holding on to the essence of travel by creating a tropical island, sand included, in his apartment; Tony in "Big Grey" hunting a vicious stray dog in a park but then frantically trying to save the animal when the hunt turns ugly; Christine the mechanic in "Daddy D and Short Time" understandably disenchanted with her lover and then, after meeting a strong, wise black man and his charge, a fragile, small Italian with little time to live, accepting her lover and the inevitable "maturing" of her body. Each story holds its own, and the best in this excellent collection is not necessarily any of the ones mentioned here."
Booknews
"A collection of 11 short stories on deceptively commonplace themes--sibling rivalry, hanging out with friends--that leave a peculiar lump in your throat as you finish them."
Harriet Swain, Times Literary Supplement
“Becker has an exceptional eye for relationships. His stories gently probe the bonds between siblings, friends, employer and employee, rivals, lovers, without altogether untying them. He draws people, not only through the image they have of themselves but by how they seem to others.”
The Boston Sunday Globe
“Becker has this world down to perfection. The voices of his characters, first person and third person conferred, are completely convincing. And, even though they make us feel tired, we are drawn into their lives whether we like it or not.”
Carolyn See, The Washington Post:
“These stories take the most obvious material, as plain as the stains on our own shirts, and make us look at those stains and pay attention to what all this might mean. This is excellent and original work.”
Alice McDermott, The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:
“. . .Geoffrey Becker is a skillful and engaging writer with a voice full of sympathy and gentle humor. . .”