Twilight of the Superheroes took me a month to finish because I kept falling asleep. At first I thought the problem was me. After all, reviewers in publications with familiar names described it in terms usually reserved for the likes of Alice Munro and Philip Roth. "Magic," muses Newsweek. "Dazzling," laughs Time Out New York. "The most important work of fiction published this year," cries the Cleveland Plain Dealer. But no. It isn't me. This book may be all of those things but above all it is also aggressively boring. Perhaps I shouldn't criticize. I mean, where's my MacArthur Genius Grant? But, ok, listen. Someone needs to tell every contemporary literary fiction writer who grew up or now lives in Manhattan that it's ok not to write about wealthy New York families with problems. It just is. Adding in a cursory reference to 9/11 or the Iraq War or the economy doesn't fix things. It only highlights your odd absorption with this tiny, increasingly irrelevant population. The writing is lyrical and beautiful, and Eisenberg teaches at one of the top MFA programs in the country. So why does each story in this collection feel ripped from the headlines of the NYT Thursday Styles section?
postscript: Oh, excuse me, "Home & Garden"
post post-script: At first I accidentally typed Home $ Garden. That made me laugh, probably too much.
post post post-script: I just got mad rageful over a book of short stories nobody I know will ever read. Think it's maybe time to go outside.
this review made me smile
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