Overview

With her new dazzling collection of short fiction Schwartz has propelled herself to the front rank of inventive short story writers such as George Sanders and David Means Her characters are indefatigable New Yorkers whose long-established routines are thwarted by a swerve of fate or a mishap or a time warp. A man generously lends his car to his ex-wife and is bewildered when she neglects to return it and keeps making implausible excuses not to bring it back. A neat and orderly clothing store owner is taken in and manipulated by an ailing elderly neighbor who then leaves her all earthly possessions. A woman who has been left by her husband for a younger woman and forced to visit the couple in order to see her children realizes, with a mixture of fascination and elation, that her former husband has been physically and psychologically debilitated by his recent marriage to a much younger wife. The majority of Schwartz's characters reflect her many decades of accumulating wisdom and her sharp and fascinating perspective. Reflecting on the past one of her characters muses ""Memory is so prone to digression. To sustain a logical or chronological sequence we must keep dragging our minds off their natural course like a cowboy tugging on a calf with a rope around its neck who wants to run off into the fields."" With this sort of nuanced thinking Schwartz's fiction brings new angles of intelligence to day-to day questions.

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9781883285920

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Reviews

Wonderful... It goes beyond literature and philosophy to a tough, battered truth. --The New York Times on Disturbances in the Field The book has the architecture of a sonata. --San Jose Mercury News on Disturbances in the Field Schwartz is a connoisseur of anguish, especially survivor's guilt, yet she is also an adept choreographer of romance. Incisive, unafraid to flirt with melodrama in pursuit of a compelling story, acutely descriptive yet to the point, she now brings to fiction the era-defining tragedy of September 11, 2001... [T]his is also a richly nuanced love story, a tale of earned trust and courageous receptivity in a time of fanaticism and war. -- Booklist Starred Review on The Writing on the Wall A quiet masterwork of late 20th-century American realism. --Kirkus Reviews on Disturbances in the Field Disturbances in the Field seems a more-than-welcome return to a classic idea of the novel... A wonder to read... I can think of no other contemporary writer who writes so well, with such rich sensuality. --Los Angeles Times Book Review Meticulously crafted. . . . This first-rate collection demonstrates why Schwartz remains an American literary treasure.--Publishers Weekly Lynne Sharon Schwartz reaches into her heart, examines its intricacies, tinkers with little broken bits, and shows us what she's learned--daring us to try this risky procedure at home.-- Los Angeles Review of Books on This is Where We Come In [R]eading Schwartz is like a pleasurable visit with a thoughtful and articulate friend. -- Kirkus Reviews on This is Where We Come In [Schwartz's] insights are at once sympathetic and drenched with irony.--The New York Times on Rough Strife

Wonderful... It goes beyond literature and philosophy to a tough, battered truth. --The New York Times on Disturbances in the Field The book has the architecture of a sonata. --San Jose Mercury News on Disturbances in the Field Schwartz is a connoisseur of anguish, especially survivor's guilt, yet she is also an adept choreographer of romance. Incisive, unafraid to flirt with melodrama in pursuit of a compelling story, acutely descriptive yet to the point, she now brings to fiction the era-defining tragedy of September 11, 2001... [T]his is also a richly nuanced love story, a tale of earned trust and courageous receptivity in a time of fanaticism and war. -- Booklist Starred Review on The Writing on the Wall Lynne Sharon Schwartz reaches into her heart, examines its intricacies, tinkers with little broken bits, and shows us what she's learned--daring us to try this risky procedure at home. -- Los Angeles Review of Books on This is Where We Come In A quiet masterwork of late 20th-century American realism. --Kirkus Reviews on Disturbances in the Field [Schwartz's] insights are at once sympathetic and drenched with irony. --The New York Times on Rough Strife [R]eading Schwartz is like a pleasurable visit with a thoughtful and articulate friend. -- Kirkus Reviews on This is Where We Come In Disturbances in the Field seems a more-than-welcome return to a classic idea of the novel... A wonder to read... I can think of no other contemporary writer who writes so well, with such rich sensuality. --Los Angeles Times Book Review

Author Information

Lynne Sharon Schwartz is the author of twenty-three books that include the novels Disturbances in the Field Leaving Brooklyn a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award and Rough Strife a finalist for the National Book Award She has also published non-fiction short stories a memoir essays and translations Schwartz is the recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation the National Endowment for the Arts in fiction and translation and the New York State Foundation for the Arts She has taught widely in the United States and abroad and currently teaches at the Bennington College Writing Seminars and the Columbia University School of the Arts.

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