In the following review of Reasons to Live, Ballantyne mentions the minimalist nature of Hempel's stories, which is the kind that "robs us of nothing" and seems to contain all the information a reader needs.

Minimalism has its uses, and can achieve surprisingly varied effects: it can allude and expand, as well as leave out and compress. At its most reductive or repetitive, it can induce corresponding states of boredom or trance. There is a kind of writing that masks a lack of substance by itself posing as substance Rushing to fill that void, a reader must project his own meaning, or assume the presence of some meaning that eludes his grasp. At its worst, minimalism is a kind of fraudulent tic that serves to hide a vacuum or defend against feeling. At its best it can, with economy and restraint, amplify perception and force meaning to...