a city reader

from a review in The New York Review of Books of a collection of stories by Deborah Eisenberg. The 'sirens' sentences I find myself staring at and rereading. 



Her stories, especially the recent ones, demand careful attention and rereading in order to trace the delicate lines of connection across and between sections and paragraphs. One gets the sense, when deep inside an Eisenberg story, that she is pushing past her own understanding of what she knows, trying to find and identify the most difficult questions possible. She is alert to the dire signals that are emanating from the country and planet, but she hasn’t given up on trying to interpret them. “So many sirens!” Keith notices during his brief awakening to the world’s cruelties. “Have there been so many sirens all along?”