Books like The Little Disturbances of Man

Wry and chatty, Grace Paley’s debut collection The Little Disturbances of Man thoughtfully explores the interiority of Jewish women living in New York. In lucid prose Paley fully renders an eclectic mix of immigrant and second-generation voices across these ten lively stories, which portray the hardships and joys of daily life in the city with wit and insight. In each tale a droll narrator sketches fragments of her past, offering alternately caustic and affectionate commentary on the people and places she once knew; a single mother reflects on her struggle to raise two well-adjusted sons in “Two Short Sad Stories from a Long and Happy Life,” while an aging aunt recounts a passionate love affair during her youth to her niece in “Goodbye and Good Luck.” Paley’s writing is succinct, but her plotting is elliptical and sometimes dizzying. The author’s gift for veering from the comically banal to the profound in the span of a sentence is breathtaking, and her deep influence on subsequent American short story writers is readily apparent.