This fervor sometimes pushes his muscular prose over the line into bombast.

"Nelson writes a clear, muscular prose that shuttles interestingly between the physical and emotional worlds," Frederick Busch wrote here in 2002.

All this seems pretty winsome when one is accustomed to the male author cliche as eye-catchingly macho, turning out muscular prose that crackles.

Not always admirable, those Romans, but they wrote a muscular prose far more bracing than the wheezing, whining, hyper-inflated, empty-headed, tongue-twisting, death's-door English of Washington.

Nelson's fourth collection, written in clear, muscular prose that endures depression, deals chiefly with distraught women in the act of returning, often to a childhood home, looking for a second chance.

"In muscular prose, with appealing imagery . . . 'If I Don't Six' is by turns funny, insightful, sad," Ira Berkow wrote here in 1998.

In muscular prose, with appealing imagery (when the traveling team boards a bus, he describes "necks tucked into knotted ties"), "If I Don't Six" is by turns funny, insightful, sad.

Sargent not only has a vivid imagination, but a strong command of the English language, a rare combination in an industry where publishers tend to value typing speed more than muscular prose.

The muscular prose and manly passion bring home what was lost when pictures were gained.

For all the dirt it rolls around in, Mr. Burke's muscular prose is full of grace.