Criticism & Features

NBCC Reads

NBCC Good Reads 3 [The Long Tail]: Steven G. Kellman on Dominique Fabre’s “The Waitress Was New”

By NBCC


NBCC Nona Balakian winner for best critic of the year Steven G. Kellman’s recommendation for his favorite work of fiction for Spring 2008:

The Waitress Was New by Dominique Fabre, translated from the French by Jordan Stump.  Archipelago Books.

More novella — in fact, récit — than novel, The Waitress Was New is a pitch-perfect evocation of three days in the life of a middle-aged barman at a Paris bistro. The Willy Loman of apéritifs, Pierre is a solitary, self-effacing minion who also serves by standing and waiting. The Waitress Was New is the first of Dominique Fabre’s nine works to be translated into English, and it will make readers thirsty for another round.—Steven G. Kellman