"Twilight of the Superheroes"

Several of the stories in Deborah Eisenberg's "Twilight of the Superheroes: Stories" (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2006) are very much New York fiction: urban, quick, abrupt, scattered, elliptical, talky, somewhat neurotic. Some - especially the title story - are informed by the events of September 11, 2001. There are exceptions to the New York setting, such as "Window," which takes place in suburban and rural settings, and "Like it or Not," set in Italy. Yet even the characters in those stories are, or seem to be, of urban American backgrounds and sensibilities. Eisenberg's stories are always compelling, although unsettling. I read this book when it came out in 2006, and just re-read it; the stories definitely deserve re-reading. If you like this collection, you may want to look for the author's very recent book, "The Collected Stories of Deborah Eisenberg" (Picador, 2010), which includes all four of her previously published story collections.