After seeing Mr. Scott at the Texas Book Festival where he was insightful and articulate about his own work and the state of modern short stories, and after sampling the many positive reviews posted here, I still feel disappointed with this story collection. To me it was mostly style with little substance. Sentences often seemed to be much ado about very little. I get that loneliness is universal, but what of it? The much-praised novella portion seemed like a too-easy and superficial send up of academia -- more like the complaints and fantasies of a weary grad student than a perceptive take down. And while race is prominent in some of the earlier stories, it's nearly lost in the novella's focus on loneliness. I need to grow more as a reader of work on the more experimental end of the spectrum, so maybe I'll revisit this as I mature.