Two novellas are included in this volume: the title story and “Three Pigs in Five Days.” Both share similarities in terms of theme, characterization and setting. In both, the main character struggles with an overwhelming sense of self-doubt while in the thrall of a much more charismatic person who is in most ways their opposite, set against the backdrop of-and contradicted with-the horrors of World War II perpetrated against the European Jews.

I have read several of Prose’s novels, and she always attempts to do something very difficult: make unlikeable characters sympathetic. When she succeeds, as in Blue Angel, the results are enthralling. More often, though, she doesn’t quite manage to pull it off, as is the case here. Her protagonists in both stories are too self-pitying, too obsessive—they quickly become tiresome. Her antagonists are self-important blowhards, and we can’t quite see what the attraction is. Prose is a fine writer, and she gets points for trying to stretch, but she falls a little short of the mark here.