Break It Down

"Davis is a magician of self-consciousness. Few writers now working make the words on the page matter more."—Jonathan Franzen

"The best prose stylist in America."—Rick Moody

"One of the quiet giants of Amerian fiction."—Benjamin Weissman, Los Angeles Times Book Review

"Davis works at something much larger: an attempt to remake the model of the modern short story. She tinkers with nearly every convention imaginable, often refusing to give characters names, gracing others with initials only and even managing to tell one story without mentioning any characters at all. Along the way, she rehabilitates older forms like fables and journals, exploring the paradox set forth in the title story's opening line . . . Davis surveys all this and more in compressed prose that is frequently poetic and, without question, memorable."—Liam Callanan, The New York Times Book Reivew

"Lydia Davis has been considered an American virtuoso of the short story form since the publication of her first major collection, Break It Down . . . which was met with unreserved critical acclaim. Introspective and subversive, ironic and playful, obsessive and funny, Davis' stories reveal the ratcheting of the imagination and the ineffable movement of the mind over the varied textures of daily life."—Kate Moses, Salon

"Davis is one of the most precise and economical writers we have."—Dave Eggers, McSweeney's

"Davis can achieve an impressive degree of realism when it comes to revealing the essence of thinking and feeling. For a writer who is, on the surface, so strenuously cerebral, she produces writing that is often exceedingly intimate, and it's this discrepancy that proves rewarding in her work. . . . Davis is an extraordinary technician of language, capable of revealing elusive human tendencies through the most unusual means."—Ben Marcus, Bookforum