Twilight of the Superheroes: Stories [Paperback]

Deborah Eisenberg (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 23, 2007

Deborah Eisenberg is nearly unmatched in her mastery of the short-story form. Now, in her newest collection, she demonstrates once again her virtuosic abilities in precisely distilled, perfectly shaped studies of human connection and disconnection. From a group of friends whose luck in acquiring a luxurious Manhattan sublet turns to disaster as their balcony becomes a front-row seat to the catastrophe of 9/11, to the too painful love of a brother for his schizophrenic sister, Eisenberg brilliantly "illustrates the lives of people rubbed raw by what the fates have sent them" (Vanity Fair).

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. Short-story master Eisenberg delivers, with signature intelligence and humor, six elegant, soulful new tales in her fifth book of stories. In a nuanced and compassionate family portrait, "Some Other, Better Otto," complex expressions of love and despair circle around a high-strung brother and his prodigiously talented, mentally ill sister. Several other stories also portray families pulling simultaneously apart while cleaving together, but each character and each motive is unique in Eisenberg's hands. The extraordinary, near–novella-length "Window" follows a young, naïve woman into a marginal, backwoods life with a secretive and dictatorial man who has business in arms dealing and a toddler son he's left in her care. The title piece is set in Manhattan around the events of 9/11 and focuses on the post-collegiate ennui of a group of 20-something friends facing an uncertain future. The author is at the top of her form delving into the varied but devastating truth that, even after an apocalypse, people still have to lie in the beds they've made, unable to sleep. A terrific addition to the oeuvre of one of America's finest and most deeply empathetic short story writers. (Feb.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Bookmarks Magazine

Critics call Deborah Eisenberg a master of the short story, and Twilight, her seventh collection, reaffirms that reputation. With insight and intelligence, Eisenberg delves deep inside the daily lives of "outsiders" wandering through life. All stories didn't touch all critics equally; some described the title story as one of the best pieces of fiction to capture the dislocation of 9/11, while others called it hackneyed. Other tales struck critics as either too political or unbelievable. Only "Some Other, Better Otto" met with universal acclaim. But in each story Eisenberg creates "stunning inner monologues" (Los Angeles Times) that reveal the disjunction between perception and reality—perhaps life's greatest truth.

Copyright © 2004 Phillips & Nelson Media, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 225 pages
• Publisher: Picador (January 23, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312425937
• ISBN-13: 978-0312425937
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #639,489 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

30 of 33 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.

7 of 9 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.