Twilight of the Superheroes [Hardcover]

Deborah Eisenberg (Author)

Product Details

• Hardcover
• Publisher: FARRAR STRAUS & GIROUX@ (1980)
• ASIN: B000N77XG4
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (18 customer reviews)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

29 of 32 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Superb Series Of Short Stories, February 11, 2006

By 

C. Hutton "book maven" (East Coast, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Twilight of the Superheroes: Stories (Hardcover)

Ms. Eisenberg has a wicked sense of literary creation. The colorful book jacket alone encompasses so many meanings and allusions. The battered Batman-like superhero watches over the mayhem of 9-11 and over the New York City loft where Ms. Eisenberg's characters of the titled story have gathered. The title itself invokes the opera of Richard Wagner, "The Twilight of the Gods." And the reader has not even reached the actual story itself.

The author is an acquired taste who makes the reader work at understanding the motives and actions of her flawed but all-too-human characters -- this is not beach reading. For those who enjoy the craft of her story-telling, the reader is referred to last year's "Collected Stories of Deborah Eisenberg" and to 1996's "The Stories (So Far) of Deborah Eisenberg" -- the latter is the reprinting together of her first two books of stories while the former is a 'best of" collection from all her published works.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Post-9/11ist stories about lostness and aloneness, January 21, 2007

By 

DVL (Upstate New York) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Twilight of the Superheroes: Stories (Hardcover)

With "Twighlight of the Superheroes," Deborah Eisenburg is throwing another log onto the early but incipient literary bonfire of "Post-9/11ism." Indeed, these stories are a testament to Post-9/11ism's leading attributes: expectation of imminent doom, the globe as a child that has lost its innocence, the theory that, contrary to the trend prevalent throughout most of history, the teenagers, 20- and 30-somethings of today will be the first generation to live less happily than their parents, as well as the feeling that our world, through its fast-paced ambition and utter forwardness, has made tragic mistakes for which our children and grandchildren will pay.

The title story, of course, says this the best. And as a 17-year-old who expects to reside one day in no place other than a city like New York, I finished it with tears in my eyes. Not because the story was dark, or polemic-sounding, which it was, but because, counter to those strides, there is empathy for the characters, and an underlying, godless faith that we as people will survive, continue to wake up in the morning and live the lives we make for ourselves. The world in which this story was written is not the world that existed ten years ago. This is a time of monumental change, and I welcome the recent movement of Post-9/11ism with open arms.

6 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Stunning, August 22, 2006

By 

Zolma "A reader" (California) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Twilight of the Superheroes: Stories (Hardcover)

The stories in this book are absolutely stunning. I want to know more about every single character. I care about them and hope that during my lifetime Ms. Eisernberg writes more stories with these characters. They are real, yet each one represents something. Amazing.