I’ve known of Dorothy Parker for a while now - she was this fabled female American Oscar Wilde wit, writing for the New Yorker and part of the Algonquin Round Table, a group of artists from the 1920s - but never read her until now. And maybe her wit comes across more strongly in her non-fiction because I didn’t see anything funny or clever in her fiction, three stories of which are collected in this small book.
The title story is about a woman who’s “wistful” for a baby, and You Were Perfectly Fine is about a woman recounting to a hungover man his drunken shenanigans of the night before. Both stories are forgettable and pointless - I think the latter was meant to be amusing but it wasn’t.
Big Blonde is the main story here, about the sad life of a “good time gal” who becomes an alcoholic. This wasn’t as crap as the other two stories but it’s also not that brilliant - it’s your typical addict’s story of going from bad to worse to hitting rock bottom.
It’s about the damage denying your true self can do to your soul - Hazel Morse is a sex worker who latches onto scumbags who pay her for her company and she has to pretend to be happy while around them and finds it increasingly difficult to do because of her terrible life. It’s compelling to read in that morbid car-crash way but also not that distinctive in the substance abuse fiction sub-genre.
Parker was definitely a strong writer - the prose is excellent - I just wasn’t that taken with her stories and found The Custard Heart an underwhelming read. Probably not the best place to start with Dorothy Parker.
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