Name: Dreams of a Robot Dancing Bee
ISBN: 9781933517353

James Tate

Pulitzer Prize winner James Tate's only collection of short fiction available for the first time in paperback.

Dreams of a Robot Dancing Bee

Hans Gerwitz

A good movie can, over an hour or two, share a story with you. It feeds your senses with inputs that both tickle your perception and build a model world that engages your emotions. When I walk away from a movie, I don't retain many details (my episodic memory is weak) but the "feel" of the story sticks with me.

A good painting or photograph, on the other hand, can affect me similarly without telling a lengthy story. The result is just as satisfying, even if not entertaining for as long.

These "stories" are barely that, and are more like character studies. They give you just enough of a world to understand the characters, to tug at your emotions, and then end. If Kurt Vonnegut's short stories are film shorts, Tate has presented a compelling set of photographs.