Hortense Calisher's complex exploration of the journey of a young man whose intelligent observations cannot help him figure out his own directionReturning home to New York from Europe on his twenty-first birthday, draft-dodging narrator Bunty Bronstein is frustrated with his increasingly pompous businessman father and his disaffected mother, who no longer shows the flame she once possessed.Equipped with an incisive view of bourgeois lifestyles in New York, Bunty observes the shifting sensibilities of his family members, and yet has difficulty apprehending his own place in the world. Preoccupied with emerging computer technology, yet unsure of his future and alienated from his once-comfortable family, Bunty remains a compelling, wandering soul.A male companion piece to Hortense Calisher's equally expert yet campier Queenie, Eagle Eye explores the mind of a relatable young man facing dilemmas that are at once universal and singular.

A sprawling, multicharacter masterpiece of guilt and the hope for redemptionOpening in 1943 and spanning over a decade, The New Yorkers is Hortense Calisher's most ambitious novel. Judge Simon Mannix, a well-educated upper-middle-class New Yorker, is faced with a terrible decision when his unfaithful wife is accidentally shot and killed by their twelve-year-old daughter. Mannix insists upon keeping the truth a secret, claiming that the death was a suicide, as he attempts to save his child from a life of psychological trauma. Shame accumulates in his consciousness, and Mannix finds himself obsessed with the nuances of guilt.Calisher weaves a complex tapestry of closely observed human behaviors and emotions, accentuated by a collection of fragmented portraits of the lives that intersect with those of the judge and his daughter.

From Publishers WeeklyCalisher's "kissing cousin"part of her family in every respect except bloodwas spunky Katie Pyle, the girl with "brown teacup eyes." When the author, a cheerfully arrogant 15-year-old born to a Southern Jewish family, had trouble coping in tough New York City, Katie, 15 years her senior, was there to give moral support. Through the decades their friendship served as a wellspring that preserved the pristine spontaneity of their shared childhoods. Calisher brings to this slim, brave, deeply affecting memoir the gift for sharply drawn characters and gimlet wit that mark her novels ( False Entry , The New Yorkers ) and short stories. "My family went down like the Lusitania ," she writes after her mother died. Katie helped her weather the storm. Skipping from Port Washington, N.Y., to Port Charlotte, Fla., and following Katie in her metamorphosis from mother-sister figure to wartime nurse to elegant old lady, Calisher keeps the flame of memory and friendship burning bright in a splendid performance. Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

The debut short story collection that launched the career of one of the twentieth century's most vivid writers, featuring the celebrated tale In Greenwich There Are Many Gravelled WalksIn this captivating collection of fifteen short stories, many of which first appeared in the New Yorker, Hortense Calisher's lyrical prose captures the quotidian lives of individuals dealing with alienation, loneliness, and assimilation. Highly influenced by her own New York upbringing, Calisher brings an all-knowing and compassionate verve to these intimate stories.The opening piece, In Greenwich There Are Many Gravelled Walks, is an elegantly constructed tale of a man who becomes particularly introspective after dropping his loving but alcoholic mother off at a sanitarium. In Heartburn, Calisher deftly sketches a time and place through portraits of watering holes that resemble their own camaraderie-filled communities. The unforgettable title story captures the end of a love affair.With...