All Around Atlantis: Stories [Hardcover]

Deborah Eisenberg (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 29, 1997

Deborah Eisenberg's deeply etched and mysterious stories focus on individuals grappling with dislocations, ironies, and compromises levied by ordinary reality and the vivid, troubling worlds her characters inhabit. With lyrical and gleaming prose, Eisenberg pries open daily life to explore the hidden mechanisms of human behavior.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

This book of seven short stories follows closely the release earlier this year of Eisenberg's The Stories (So Far) of Deborah Eisenberg (LJ 1/97). Eisenberg is an influential presence in contemporary short fiction with her strong portrayals of characters dealing with the confusion of modern life. These newest stories fall into two patterns: individuals caught in foreign cultures or young women trying to make sense of an amoral adult world. The young female characters are by far the most finely wrought, with added touches of humor and determination. "The Girl Who Left Her Sock on the Floor," which originally appeared in The New Yorker, is a real gem about a misfit at a girls' boarding school who suddenly finds herself alone in the world. In "Rosie Gets a Soul," a young woman gets herself off heroin and starts a new life. There's no smug self-congratulation, though; the story is a study of the reemergence from the blur to what?for some people?is the normal world. Highly recommended.?Reba Leiding, Rensselaer Polytechnic Inst., Troy, N.Y.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Eisenberg's short stories are fresh and sure. Her earlier stories were recently collected in The Stories (So Far) of Deborah Eisenberg (1997), and now a spectacular set of diverse new works is presented here, a rapid-fire release guaranteed to increase her readership. Eisenberg's speciality is depicting the carnival atmosphere of a mind coming slowly and reluctantly to terms with crisis. The very air turns visible and fragmented in "The Girl Who Left Her Sock on the Floor" when Francie, a rebellious student at an uptight boarding school, learns that her mother has died. In "Across the Lake," a young tourist in a war-torn Latin American country senses danger in everything, from a drop of water to the glint in a child's eyes. Whatever the setting, Eisenberg perfectly and instructively captures the baffling simultaneity of each moment--the indifference of sunlight, the presentiment of a misheard word--and our minds' stubborn preoccupation with the spin and crash of thoughts. Donna Seaman

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 243 pages
• Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux; 1st edition (September 29, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0374270872
• ISBN-13: 978-0374270872
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.7 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,208,357 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Nowhere But Up, May 4, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: All Around Atlantis: Stories (Hardcover)

Just when I was sure Deborah Eisenberg's short stories couldn't get any better than the genius found in her earlier collections, I read this perfect book of short stories. Her use of dialogue is more innovative than any I've seen in contemporary writers and the depths of her intelligence and sentiment are staggering. I would reccomend this book to anyone and everyone. Some of the stories demand rereading and all are classics of contemporary literature.

6 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars In Every Way Excellent, March 7, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: All Around Atlantis (Paperback)

Eisenberg's prose is poignant and percise. She cuts through the circumstance and gets right to the heart of what it really feels like to be alive. The stories are vivid, easy to read, touching and above all real. In particular Mermaids, The Girl Who Left Her Sock on the Floor, and Rosie Gets a Soul hit a resonant chord within me. I finished the book the night I bought it, and had re-read half of it by morning. One of the most satisfying purchases I've made in years.

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A compelling and unique collection of stories about human nature, May 23, 2010

By 

Mo Gareau (Ringey) "Mo Gareau (Ringey)" (The "hood, USA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: All Around Atlantis (Paperback)

I carried this book everywhere I went, so compelling and fascinating were these stories which explain so much about human nature and behavioral inclinations. I found myself re-reading most of the sentences so as to not miss a thing and to better comprehend what I soon learned to be an immensity of thoughtful hypotheses melded into each sentence construction; thought which was evident yet not overwrought - as compared to the work of Anais Nin, in which each sentence is such a crafted, and exhaustingly re-crafted marvel, that as a group such craftings often lack flow, and one can get lost in the forest for the complexity of each tree. These tales are built on carefully crafted yet never overwrought thoughts and sentences, and the forest, as a result, is a wondrous and navigable thing indeed.

I took this book along on a weekend getaway, which itself proved to be a perplexing and complex play of varying, fluctuating, and often inexplicable human interactions - derived from myriad economic and philospohical ideals, and the roots of disparate personalities - and so these stories became for me, out of necessity, both refuge and reference, by way of their effortless explanantion and readily-understood implications regarding the minds of people and all that exists behind and drives each unique utterance.

I am looking forward to gathering every collection of thoughts and words by Deborah Eisenberg, and will surely benefit from the entertainment and lessons within each refreshingly original and sublimely eloquent phrase. I am in awe of authors who are able to explain so much by way of seemingly simple tales. I became apprehensive at the waning width of the latter portion of the physical collection as the end loomed closer and closer, and tried to slow my pace to better savor each phrase.