The Breakdown So Far Author:M. A. C. Farrant The Jonathan Swift of the bingo hall and elder-care, the Alexander Pope of pet-care and the dinner parties of the liberal intelligentsia, M. A. C. Farrant continues her assault on the unaccountably disaffected and disillusioned of the Western world with "The Breakdown So Far", her latest volume of extremely short stories for those of us who seem... more » to have lost both our way and our attention span. Unsparing in her critique of the New Age syncretism, the mall culture has substituted for authentic emotion and belief, our adoption of Buddhism appears in her work as a rationalization for our ubiquitous materialism of the soul, and Zen as our guiltless doctrine of neglect.« less