Reviews
Reading [Eisenberg] makes you wish, as you study the family in front of you in the grocery line, that you could see their thoughts rendered as one of Eisenberg's stunning inner monologues., "[Eisenberg] reminds us in every line of certain saving virtues: wit, wild intelligence, great heart, the beauty of the inquiring human voice. If our culture can produce a writer this wonderful, there must be something beautiful about us yet." -- George Saunders Instead of forcing her characters' stories into neat, arbitrary, preordained shapes, [Eisenberg] allows them to grow organically into oddly shaped, asymmetrical narratives--narratives that possess all the surprising twists and dismaying turns of real life." -- New York Times "Deborah Eisenberg, one of America's finest writers, offers new ways of seeing and feeling, as if something were being perfected at the core." -- San Francisco Chronicle "Reading [Eisenberg] makes you wish, as you study the family in front of you in the grocery line, that you could see their thoughts rendered as one of Eisenberg's stunning inner monologues." -- Los Angeles Times "...[S]uperlative and entertaining...Eisenberg is funny, grim, biting, and wise, but always with a light touch and always in the service of worlds that extend far beyond the page. A virtuoso at rendering the flickering gestures by which people simultaneously hide and reveal themselves, Eisenberg is an undisputed master of the short story." -- Publishers Weekly (starred review) "[Eisenberg] is always worth the wait...so instantly absorbing that it feels like an abduction...This book offers no palliatives to its characters or to its readers -- no plan of action. But it is a compass." -- The New York Times "Eisenberg is a gorgeous writer...I thank my stars that there's a writer in the increasingly imperiled world as smart and funny and blazingly moral and devastatingly sidelong as she is." -- New York Times Book Review "Every character is memorable, every situation seizes our attention, and not a single word is out of place...It's my fervent hope...that someday we'll have the opportunity to look back on the many more stories that Deborah Eisenberg has yet to write." -- Financial Times, Instead of forcing her characters' stories into neat, arbitrary, preordained shapes, [Eisenberg] allows them to grow organically into oddly shaped, asymmetrical narratives--narratives that possess all the surprising twists and dismaying turns of real life.", Deborah Eisenberg, one of America's finest writers, offers new ways of seeing and feeling, as if something were being perfected at the core., Eisenberg is a gorgeous writer...I thank my stars that there's a writer in the increasingly imperiled world as smart and funny and blazingly moral and devastatingly sidelong as she is., [Eisenberg] reminds us in every line of certain saving virtues: wit, wild intelligence, great heart, the beauty of the inquiring human voice. If our culture can produce a writer this wonderful, there must be something beautiful about us yet., Every character is memorable, every situation seizes our attention, and not a single word is out of place...It's my fervent hope...that someday we'll have the opportunity to look back on the many more stories that Deborah Eisenberg has yet to write., [Eisenberg] is always worth the wait...so instantly absorbing that it feels like an abduction...This book offers no palliatives to its characters or to its readers -- no plan of action. But it is a compass., ...[S]uperlative and entertaining...Eisenberg is funny, grim, biting, and wise, but always with a light touch and always in the service of worlds that extend far beyond the page. A virtuoso at rendering the flickering gestures by which people simultaneously hide and reveal themselves, Eisenberg is an undisputed master of the short story.
