110 Stories: New York Writes After September 11

Edited by Ulrich Baer, and drawing on the enormous resources of New York's literary community, 110 Stories: New York Writes After September 11 is a surprisingly supple commemoration of disaster. Short-short stories and poems by New York writers are the collection's raison d'Etre, but personal testimony creeps in as well. The best entries approach the subject most obliquely or humorously-Jonathan Ames's Nabokovian ""Womb Shelter,"" David Hollander's moving ""The Price of Light and Air,"" Nathalie Handal's lovely ""The Lives of Rain,"" Lev Grossman's hilarious ""Pitching September 11,"" among many others. More predictable are the ""where-I-was-and-what-I-thought"" pieces (often by the better-known writers). Overall, this collection proves the transformative power of art.