Reviews for: Emerald City and Other Stories

“Each of these stories comes fully loaded with believable characters, a story arc, a resolution-all the satisfying elements that seem so elusive in modern fiction. Egan is a generous, gifted, and spellbinding writer.”
— Booklist (starred review)

“Egan’s writing is even more assured and convincing than it was in her debut novel, The Invisible Circus…a writer of admirable ambition and accomplishment.”
— Publisher’s Weekly (starred review)

“Egan displays a mastery of voice for a young writer…Her voice moves easily and accurately between the characters, her stories as beautifully crafted as they are darkly moving.”
— Charlotte Observer

“Ms. Egan’s voice is boundless…The moment of change is so carefully constructed in each story, so fascinating in Ms. Egan’s offhand way, that one recognizes a great new writer.”
— The Dallas Morning News

“Accomplished…sharp eye and effortlessly graceful prose…She brings us to the transcendent place where reality becomes illusion.”
— New York Newsday

“Egan displays wonderful empathy toward people who are standing at the brink of life; her tales celebrate the power of hope and redemption. Like a necklace in which every stone is a stunner, Emerald City will take your breath away.”
— Glamour

“Astounding…The wistfulness of her characters, her transcendent prose-concise and lyrical-and the consistently high caliber of stories in this collection mark Jennifer Egan as a tremendous talent.”
— Detour Magazine

“A seamless collection…displays a gift for cool, clean, wrenching prose. Jennifer Egan has modern life down pat, and in this smartly crafted collection, she hands it over.”
— People

“Immensely appealing…Told with dazzling insight and emotional daring.”
— Elle

“Distant settings and enticing writing…all bear the unmistakable stamp of a rising talent at work…Egan takes chances, ventures afar.”
— Seattle Post-Intelligencer

“Masterful…Discovering Egan in the nineties is like discovering Ann Beattie in the eighties.”
— Entertainment Weekly

“Affecting accuracy…quiet but disturbing…She deftly depicts the ways in which women can create glamorously detailed personas for one another based on passing observations.”
— Time

“Lustrous…these stories sparkle with Egan’s fresh imagery and precise renderings of mood and place…A writer of tremendous intelligence and grace.”
— Philadelphia Inquirer

“Fiction writers are connoisseurs of memory…Jennifer Egan, a writer of understated elegance, is no exception, and it’s clear that she retains keen memories of girlhood, that quicksilver time of eagerness and fear, vulnerability and conviction. She nmined this deep vein with great success in her bittersweet novel, The Invisible Circus, and it fuels her boldly modulated short stories, tales of displacement and blazing moments of truth…riveting, vaguely Hitchcockian…piercingly tender…outstanding.”
— New York Times Book Review