This slim collection of very loosely connected stories -- the boat motif is all that binds them -- was a bit wooden for my taste. The stories seemed constructed and had little strong voice in them, and yet at the same time we're not plot-driven either, and thus seemed to dither around. Now, at a three-week remove from having read it, only a single character stands out -- the bitchy architect/journal writer whose fear of being abandoned caused him to write pages and pages and pages of journals castigating his long-time boyfriend -- and I didn't like him!