[Spanking the Maid] is a failed attempt to employ the methods of the nouveau roman; the repetitions, the variations upon images, the structural loops, the shifts in perspective, all seem wearily imitative, forced, and pretentious. Each morning a maid enters her employer's bedroom, and each morning she is spanked for her failures…. [There] is an implicit invitation to see how the book is constructed…. [However], the machinery creaks, sputters, and grinds; the tricks are telegraphed, even to the ending in which the employer and maid exchange roles. Finally, I began to suspect that some grand metaphor was rearing its ugly head. Or a fable: the man and his maid are supposed to represent the relationship between man and woman, between husband and wife, children and parents; or between artist and society, or artist and critic. No matter how well the artist does some things, so the fable might...