"The stories studiously avoid beauty, and when it appears uninvited, as in Patagonia and Paris, it is just another concept whose meaning eludes characters. Cities and landscapes are described most often by visitors seeing them for the first time, by people who don’t know enough to interpret them adequately or aren’t happy enough to appreciate their beauty. Even the “places” here act like nonplaces: Cruddy apartments and dim houses are occupied by characters who want to be elsewhere, who use their homes as stepping-stones to futures unlikely to arrive, who want to escape a present suddenly gone sour."