SOURCE: "Having a Good Time with Our Worst Fears," in The New York Times Book Review, May 14, 1989, pp. 1, 33.

Benedict is an American novelist, short story writer, and critic. In the following review of If the River Was Whiskey, she praises Boyle's humorous, satiric treatment of contemporary society as entertaining but finds his somber stories more rewarding.

Half a dozen shysters, a talking three-foot-tall statue of the Virgin Mary, a mendacious adoption counselor, a Los Angeles public-relations man hired to "upgrade" Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini's image, a woman who makes her lover wear a "full-body condom" when he goes to bed with her—even the Devil himself—make appearances in T. Coraghessan Boyle's daring, irreverent and sometimes deeply moving new collection of stories, If the River Was Whiskey.

With the linguistic acrobatics and hip, erudite audacity we've come to expect from his two other story collections and three novels, Mr...