to pass that (even though Ecstatic had more and maybe head towards the modern pantheon but then uh, I won't ruin it for you. Perhaps being braced for it later will make it less disappointing.

I still gotta read Slapboxing With Jesus, even tho it came first & caught my eye instantly with the Ghostface reference right in the title, I still haven't got there yet.......maybe because when I've wanted to dig into a LaValle level of literature I was looking more for a meaty novel rather than short story collection but the blurbs I've read describe the short stories as basically LaValle's 'Dubliners' by Joyce in that the stories are interconnected vignettes (which in reality the later LaValle stuff can be at times anyway without advertising it up front).

Is that how you see it as well or is more in the Raymond Carver 'Short Cuts' style?