Author of several novels (including Red Love
), biographies (Roman Candle: The Life of Bobby Darin
) and the story collection The One-Star Jew
, Evanier exhibits mastery in this new collection of eight stories. They unfurl as the ongoing spiel of New York writer Michael Goldberg, tortured by feelings of inadequacy in love, family and work. In the opening "The Tapes," middle-aged Michael, an editor at Jewish Punchers
, unblocks the story of his life after his highly unorthodox psychiatrist dies, leaving him a trove of their taped sessions. Michael scrolls back 25-plus years through his marriage to the chronically self-effacing, alcohol-sodden Karen, whom he met as a young mother (and whose older first husband killed himself after her affair with Michael). In subsequent stories, such as "Scraps," a younger Michael casts about for a sympathetic surrogate family, such as the parents of his high school love Rachel, whose eventual rejection sets the tone for his future relations with women. Later in life, Michael attends his ailing parents ("borderline lunatics") and, in the title story, learns that his jealous mother kept a doting diary of his childhood. Evanier's stories boil with a satisfying sense of rage, stoked by sharp observation. (Nov.)
