NEW CALIFORNIA FICTION

Too many people have read, and imitated, Ann Beattie. And now, thanks to your publication of “The Arsenic Hour” (by Jane Vandenburgh), the fashion of “spare” prose (and I mean uncrafted, immature prose, riddled with stereotype) will only continue. I wonder if I am the only reader who considers this sort of fiction a big gyp.

JEAN PEHRSON

San Diego