I spread my reading of this out over five months, during which many things happened: I finished grad school, got my first real job, got dumped, got my first story published. Deborah Eisenberg was a particularly apropos constant during this tumultuous period. I'm not sure there's a more empathetic author working in fiction today. Reading her is like sitting down with your smarter, funnier friend. I took breaks for novels and for my own writing, but I always made time to return to her, and I'm glad I took my time. She may write "short" fiction but each story is as dense and rich as many novels, and this collection is best savored slowly. It covers her entire career up to now and it's wonderful to read through and see her truly blossom as a writer. I cherish the early stories as she's discovering her voice and what makes her tic, being in that current state myself, and I value the lessons of the later stories, particularly all of "Twilight of the Superheroes," which if collections were like rock albums, would be as indispensable to her chosen form as Dylan's "Blood on the Tracks" is to his, each story one shimmering part of a shattered whole (though Dylan, of course, was writing of his divorce and Eisenberg is writing of post 9/11 America). Thank you Deborah - your compassion and intelligence have much to teach us.