[The Perfect Fiction] is a surprising collection of intellectual and evocative poems. As the title suggests, the poems are concerned with reality, which is depicted frequently as drab, dark, depressing; relief lies only in the futile dreams of something better which never arrives. Evoking the spirit of "the haunt / grim in sunlight: reality," Mr. Sorrentino taps the cliché, the vernacular, and the vulgar; he resorts to banality and triteness, and obscurity to describe "reality" in verse. The range of the poems is broad, but essentially they express a painful, heartfelt lament for the nature of the reality in which we find ourselves: at times earth and hell seem much alike. The dreary, boring world is speckled with moments of love, but we seldom penetrate the surface to recognize the kind of life we find ourselves in. (pp. 757-58)

Duane B. Schneider, "The Book Review: 'The Perfect Fiction'," in...