“There are certain, rare story collections that sit on the shelf as a kind of gem box rather than a book: Salinger’s Nine Stories, Flannery O’Connor’s A Good Man Is Hard to Find, Raymond Carver’s Short Cuts, Lorrie Moore’s Like Life, to name a few. Willem de Kooning’s Paintbrush is of a piece with the work of these old guard masters – authors of ten-page epics that call you back again and again with their ringing lines and luminous images. Within Powell’s 15 stories, it is impossible to pick a crown jewel. Each one feels like the favourite until the next.” Here’s the rest of this fabulous review.