Bream Gives Me Hiccups and Other Stories

The debut story collection from actor Eisenberg is a quick, witty read. The title story features the hilarious Yelp-like restaurant reviews of a sensitive nine-year-old, whose alcoholic mother drags him around to restaurants so that her ex-husband will foot the bill. The rest of the stories borrow from similar modernist tragicomic scenarios: one story is called “My Little Sister Texts Me with Her Problems”; another, “My Spam Plays Hard to Get,” features a coy email from a porn star with a passion for Chaucer; and, in more old-fashioned missives, a first-year college student chronicles her roommate woes to a tolerant teacher back home, in “My Roommate Stole My Ramen: Letters from a Frustrated Freshman.” Eisenberg’s brand of comedy is frequently compared to Woody Allen’s, and it’s easy to see why—the stories are populated with neuroses, highly difficult people, anxious mothers, and therapists; all seem to function in the same self-contained New York universe. Reading the stories requires a certain tolerance for (or delight in) cultural references. But they’re also charming, deftly written, and laugh-out-loud funny. (Sept.)