Tricky Business

"The characters wear their flaws like brand logos, identifying them as the rotters they are and will continue to be. Barry isn't so much a satirist as a savvy shopper, picking brands from a set stock. This shorthand serves him well in his columns, which tame the chaos of an unruly world by reducing it to a familiar comedy of manners....But the same device flattens his fiction, which has to invent characters from the mess. Once he defines his characters by their tics, they can only repeat themselves."Barry, Dave is the author of 'Tricky Business', published 2003 under ISBN 9780425192740 and ISBN 0425192741.