Susan Daitch

"Startling in their intelligence and the breadth of their reimagining history the stories in Storytown are carefully detailed narratives that resist the comforts of traditional narrative devices."
"One of the finest literary imaginations of her generation... The best stories in this collection have a breathtaking elegance Daitch knows her narrative craft and how to generate meaning by invoking absence rather than writing through everything."
"Daitch’s stories are packed with packed with historical, philosophical and artistic references and jammed with signs and meanings. They also have a forward momentum and aren’t in the least bit stogy. In her playful manipulation of genres and her cool essayistic style, she’s surely a direct descendent of Borges. With these stories, ...Daitch reveals herself to be a supremely accomplished writer who combines erudition with social conscience in a matchless tone of slightly pained irony."
"Imagine taking up a pipe from Rene Magritte’s pipe and smoking it. In her brilliant new collection, Storytown, Susan Daitch, author of L.C. and The Colorist -- takes up not Magritte’s pipe but his fascination with the relations of image words, and the world."
"How can you not love a book that begins, "I woke up to find Gregor Samsa in my sink?" Unpack that sentence for what it reveals about contemporary literature, the literary past, as well as our human present, and you’ll get an intimation of Susan Daitch’s short-fiction collection, Storytown. It should be read as much for its virtuosity as for its articulation of our moment in history."
"These are fine and moving stories about the death of meaning, about persons trying to decode the seas of signals in which they float and drown, failing. Their flaw is their triumph: they try -- and so the stories are also about courage, that most tragic of virtues. This is an important collection by one of the most intelligent and attentive writers at work in the U.S. today."
"An intellectually and emotionally satisfying collection."
"Daitch's language is... mesmerizing and... quite gorgeous, presented with the authority of a great actor, an analogy that becomes more appropriate the longer you read her... An extremely resourceful writer, Daitch can write vividly about everything from art to anarchism to animal alphabets, and can work up historical scenes better than anyone else I know."