Break It Down: Stories (FSG Classics)
<p>The thirty-four stories in this seminal collection powerfully display what have become Lydia Davis's trademarks―dexterity, brevity, understatement, and surprise. Although the certainty of her prose suggests a world of almost clinical reason and clarity, her characters show us that life, thought, and language are full of disorder. <i>Break It Down </i>is Davis at her best. In the words of Jonathan Franzen, she is "a magician of self-consciousness."</p>