Deborah Eisenberg continues to get her due attention with a lovely AP profile of the short story writer honored as a MacArthur genius. Eisenberg's collected fiction is newly published; it brings together the stories of Transactions in a Foreign Currency (1986), Under the 82nd Airborne (1992), All Around Atlantis (1997) and Twilight of the Superheroes (2006). I am hungry for it.
What is pleasing about the Eisenberg profile is that it emphasizes how much work goes into her stories--even if the author is indeed a genius.
Just as actors must read a line over and over until it sounds unrehearsed, Eisenberg labors toward a free, conversational tone that can fool you into believing she simply recites her stories into a recording device. Short story writers must condense, and in "Rafe's Coat," Eisenberg sets up a life or two in the first sentence: "One sparkly evening not long after my husband and I had started divorce proceedings, Rafe stopped by for a drink before taking me out to dinner."Eisenberg ... speaks at a deliberate, cultured pace, and has a way of revealing information selectively, in her work and in person. In discussing how she came to write her first story, she refers to "the person I'm still in love with." Later, she will call him "this wonderful man" and then suggests, "Let's call him Wallace."
Wallace Shawn, playwright, author and actor, and her companion for more than 30 years.
Eisenberg credits Shawn as the loving support behind her literary breakthrough. He encouraged her to write, then rewrite, and re-re-rewrite. She thought she would kill him. She forgave him (and still does). She had never planned to work so hard.
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