The Cloud of Unknowing

<p><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(15 17 17 1)>Funny tough and heartbreaking--often all at once--Mimi Lipson's debut collection is a grand tour of bars diners bus stations dog parks hardcore clubs vacant lots and other places that draw people whose inner lives are richer than their wallets. Lipson's alter ego the sharp-tongued and sharp-eyed Kitty appears in a variety of guises: as a seven-year-old on a Florida vacation scammed by her roguish father as a college student who receives a stunningly crucial education outside the classroom as a passenger whose life changes on a cross-country bus. After meeting her parents her brother her friends and co-workers we are introduced to Isaac the sui generis manchild who becomes both her lover and her charge a human roller-coaster who swings her between delight exasperation and mortal peril.</span></p><p><br></p><p><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(15 17 17 1)>Like a dinner composed of appetizers Lipson's book is very nearly a novel in mosaic form without all the boring parts. Her wit is as sharp as a serpent's tooth her sentences as percussively satisfying as billiard balls clicking into the pocket.</span></p>