Most publications covering Arthur Miller’s death will inevitably focus on his achievements as a playwright (update: see “Death of a Playwright,” here, here and here). TheBookStandard.com, however, is owned by VMU, also the owner of the infamously cranky Kirkus Reviews, a combination capable of producing one wildly inappropriate obit.
Here, in its gory-glory, is the bulk of it:
Best known for the classic 1949 play, Death of a Salesman, Miller was prolific throughout his life, writing at least 23 plays, the last of which, Finishing the Picture, he completed in 2004. While he focused most of his talent on writing for the stage, he also penned short stories (ed. — “and though these stories should be irrelevent, anything reviewed by our brilliant sister, Kirkus, isn’t”).
Of one collection, Homely Girl, a Life and Other Stories (Viking), published in 1995, Kirkus Reviews said: “The title piece, previously published in a 1992 limited edition, shows its author’s trademark of intensive character scrutiny and discursive, often stilted social commentary (ed. — “good one, Kirkus!”). It’s the story of a plain woman who achieves self-respect and fulfillment by managing to say ‘Fuck the future’ (ed. — “and isn’t that what death says, too, K.? How poetic.”) to her strident socialist husband and ignore the expectations–and limitations–others impose on her.”
Decades earlier, in 1966, Miller published the collection I Don’t Need You Anymore (Viking). In its review, Kirkus (ed. — “We love you, Kirkus!”) calls attention to the author’s weaknesses… :
“Arthur Miller is an eminently criticizable writer. He is a big man so his faults as a writer are commensurately big. His short stories–nine of them here, written over the past fifteen years for his own pleasure–are not exempted from his failings. Some of the stories reek with the self pity of the over-loved, others are ambitiously mawkish. One of them, previously unpublished, should never have been published at all.”
To GC’s way of thinking, that last line feels as wrong as a mother at her son’s funeral saying, “You know he was an accident.” You just aren’t supposed to go there.