Inside a Dog

The first story in this book is really the best one out of the bunch. The final story is the worst, almost like the book was designed as a progression with decreasing quality as you move along.

This is not to say that the style or the writing got any worse particularly. Sartre's fiction style isn't any great shakes, though his stories are always interesting. The last story though "Childhood of a Leader" is just so thick with period references to France between the two World Wars that it's difficult to understand all the references to various historical figures and movements. The fascism is easy enough to clue in on, but the ins and outs of the youth movements and so on made for distracting reading. New Directions is a cheap ass publishing house (though they do important and valuable service), so don't expect a footnoted edition any time ever, as helpful as that would be.