Black Vodka

Book excerpt: Now in paperback, a "tantalizingly poetic" (NYTBR) collection in which Levy "conquer[s] the genre which demands she fashion perfect jewels" (The Independent). The stories in Black Vodka, by acclaimed author Deborah Levy, are perfectly formed worlds unto themselves, written in elegant yet economical prose. She is a master of the short story, exploring loneliness and belonging; violence and tenderness; the ephemeral and the solid; the grotesque and the beautiful; love and infidelity; and fluid identities national, cultural, and personal. In "Shining a Light," a woman's lost luggage is juxtaposed with far more serious losses. An icy woman seduces a broken man in "Vienna," and a man's empathy threatens to destroy him in "Stardust Nation." "Cave Girl" features a girl who wants to be a different kind of woman--she succeeds in a shocking way. A deformed man seeks beauty amid his angst in the title story. These are twenty-first century lives dissected with razor-sharp humor and curiosity. Levy's stories will send you tumbling into a rabbit hole, and you won't be able to scramble out until long after you've turned the last page.