How This Night is Different: Stories - Hardcover

Albert, Elisa

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0743291271 ISBN 13: 9780743291279

Publisher: Free Pr, 2006

Synopsis

A darkly humorous collection of short works about the faith struggles of disaffected Jewish youths includes "The Living," a hormonally charged teen-tour of Auschwitz, and "Everything But," a sexually frustrated housewife's regression to Bat Mitzvah-age antics. 35,000 first printing.

About this title

Review

"What makes "How This Night Is Different" different is simply the fact that Elisa Albert is a funny and gutsy writer with a knack for locating the absurd poignancy in familiar situations. This is an accomplished, moving, and often risky debut." -- Sam Lipsyte, author of "Home Land"

"Elisa Albert provides ample evidence of just how this smart, funny, outrageous young Jewish writer is different -- she's wildly entertaining, incisive as an ice pick, deeply engaged, and curiously, memorably moving. Philip Roth will surely be amused and deliciously appalled, as will you, Gentle Reader, at her inheritance and renewal of the culture and the dream."

-- Jayne Anne Phillips, author of "Machine Dreams" and "Motherkind"

"Elisa Albert is a funny and gutsy writer with a knack for locating the absurd poignancy in familiar situations. This is an accomplished, moving and often risky debut."

-- Sam Lipsyte, author of "Home Land" and "Venus Drive"

"Explores traditional Jewish rituals with youthful, irreverent exuberance...hilariously vulgar."

-- "Publishers Weekly"

"Elisa Albert is the wild, late-coming progeny of Philip Roth and Grace Paley, and we are lucky to have her. Her stories take contemporary Jewish life by the scruff of its neck and give it the shaking that it deserves. There is no piety here, only what you want most from a story: hot prose and the human comedy."

-- Jonathan Wilson, author of "A Palestine Affair"

"Only a writer as daring as Elisa Albert would end a sharp-witted, funny, and profoundly sad debut collection with a story that yanks off the writerly mask and slashes the safety net. My jaw dropped -- and not just because I was laughing."

-- David Gates, author of "Jernigan" and "The Wonders of the Invisible World"

"How is this book different? It manages to be sharp, unflinching, tender, funny, smart, and vastly entertaining all at once."

-- Tova Mirvis, author of "The Outside World" and "The Ladies Auxiliary"

"With acid wit and bitter truth Elisa Albert rocks the High Holy house! "How This Night Is Different" is a postmodern mitzvah."

-- Holiday Reinhorn, author of "Big Cats"

"Elisa Albert is the real thing -- funny, perceptive, quirky, and possessed of a unique voice. May she continue to write and thrive."

-- Erica Jong

"Elisa Albert spins dark comedy into gold. Smart, sexy, and funny as all get-out, her stories are also profound and poignant. This is a story collection to cherish."

-- Binnie Kirshenbaum, author of "Hester Among the Ruins" and "An Almost Perfect Moment"

About the Author

Elisa Albert is the author of the short story collection How This Night is Different and the novel The Book of Dahlia. She has taught creative writing at Columbia University and is currently Writer-in-Residence at the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study in Holland.

Edition details

• Publisher: Free Pr
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 0743291271
• ISBN 13: 9780743291279
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 198