Ghost pains

With her novel The Visitors, Jessi Jezewska Stevens has proven herself as our preeminent purveyor of comical, techno-millenarian unease. Now, with this first collection of her acclaimed short fiction - originally appearing in such venues as The Paris Review and Harper's - some of her very best work is at last readily available to readers. Stevens's women throw disastrous parties in the post-party era, flirt through landscapes of terror and war, and find themselves unrecognisable after waking up with old flames in new cities. They navigate the labyrinths of history, love, and ethics in a fractured American present, seeing first-hand how history influences the ways in which we care for - or neglect - one another. 'Stevens' impeccable artistry manages to overlay the gauzy romance of the stranger in a strange land atop the grim economic and interpersonal realities that so often accompany relative youth, relative freedom, and relative love. Erudite, eloquent, and bittersweet-these stories are like chewing on the orange rind for a last bitter taste of the drink.'Kirkus Reviews