SOURCE: “Hoffman Energizes His Tales,” in Richmond Times Dispatch, September 11, 1994, p. F4.

In the following brief review of the short stories in Follow Me Home, Carter deems the tales to be carefully constructed, humorous, and compelling, but denounces Hoffman for the fact that some of the stories and dialogue seem contrived.

“We read to know we're not alone,” says a character in the recent film, Shadowlands. Literature comforts us with the knowledge that others share our doubts and fears, our disappointments and heartaches. And it extends this comfort by letting us enter the lives of others and experience the secret longings and broken dreams that stand us on common ground.

It is this function of literature that William Hoffman, a Virginian and former Hampden-Sydney College professor, so capably fulfills in his third collection of stories [Follow Me Home]. A master craftsman of empathy, Hoffman immerses us in the...