Ether: Seven Stories and a Novella

A New York Times Book Review Editors Choice. All the characters in Evgenia Citkowitzs first collection of short fiction are connected by the quest for identity―some are poised at crossroads while others teeter on the edge of a moral precipice. In Leavers Events a teenage girl awaits exam results and has a sexual encounter with a teacher that she hopes will define her. In Sundays Child a middle-aged actress evicts a homeless woman from her garden precipitating a crisis of conscience. And in the title novella Ether a blocked writer plagiarizes his own life with devastating consequences. . Unexpected and startlingly original Citkowitz depicts her characters with a mordant humor and tenderness that never diminishes their complexity.