"Each of the six stories in Your Duck is My Duck, Eisenberg's first collection since 2006, has the heft and complexity of a novel. With her own inexorable but utterly unpredictable logic and her almost uncanny ability to conjure the strange states of mind and emotion that constitute our daily consciousness, Eisenberg pulls us as if by gossamer threads through her characters--a tormented woman whose face determines her destiny; a group of film actors shocked to read a book about their past; a privileged young man who unexpectedly falls into a love affair with a human rights worker caught up in an all-consuming quest that he doesn't understand."--

Deborah Eisenberg is almost unmatched in her mastery of the short story form. In this, her seventh collection, she demonstrates her virtuosic abilities in precisely distilled, unflinchingly honest studies of human connection and disconnection. From a group of friends whose luxurious Manhattan sublet becomes a front-row seat to the catastrophe of 9/11; to the Roman holiday of a schoolteacher running away from the news of her ex-husband's life-threatening illness; to the too painful love of a brother for his schizophrenic sister, Eisenberg evokes painful and tender truths, both poetic and deeply political. 'The stories are, in their masterly crosshatching of light and dark, concentrated bursts of perfection’ The Times ‘Wonderful . . . written with a ruthless, compassionate eye and a subtle humour' Guardian ‘Further confirms her reputation as one of the most imaginative and exquisitely perceptive of today’s short story writers' Scotland on Sunday 'She makes you smile as much as she haunts with stark truths . . . In the US, many people consider Eisenberg to be up there with Alice Munro, the female monarch of the short-story form. It’s time the UK considered putting her up there too’ Financial Times

Deborah Eisenberg is nearly unmatched in her mastery of the short story form. Now, in her newest collection, she demonstrates once again her virtuosic abilities in precisely distilled, perfectly shaped studies of human connection and disconnection. From a group of friends whose luck in acquiring a luxurious Manhattan sublet turns to disaster as their balcony becomes a front-row seat to the catastrophe of 9/11; to the Roman holiday of a schoolteacher running away from the news of her ex-husband's life-threatening illness, and her unlikely guide, a titled art scout in desperate revolt against his circumstances and aging; to the too painful love of a brother for his schizophrenic sister, whose tragic life embitters him to the very idea of family, Eisenberg evokes, in brooding passionate and brilliant prose, a brutally honest portrait of our lives today, showing us truths which are both poetic and deeply political. 'Like Alice Munro, virtually her only equal in the field, Deborah Eisenberg seems incapable of writing a bad short story . . . Eisenberg's writing at times approaches the beauty of a line of poetry. She manipulates her readers with a master's blend of humor and poignancy. Her stories are wondrous' San Francisco Chronicle

Seven stories tell of a tragic love affair, a teenager's involvement with an older man, a struggle to quit smoking, and a woman who discovers she is in love with an old friend