Book Review: Twilight of the Superheroes

Twilight of the Superheroes by Deborah Eisenberg

This is the first book I've read that references 9/11 in such a way that it is an element in every story. Each of these stories explore the way the events unsettled people, made already unsettled people worse, and how the subsequent wars didn't help. This isn't to say that the book leans on the events or that the storytelling only succeeds in this context. These stories, long though they are, succeed in their own right.

With the use of sometimes superfluous language derived from dramatic events or characters on the edge of sanity, Eisenberg crafts stories that are thoroughly modern. We are given modern situations and modern approaches to them, without relying on gimmicky or thoroughly comic storytelling. It is almost as if Eisenberg is giving us guidelines on how to write in these new and unsettled times.