Seduction Theory: Stories

(W.W. Norton, 1995, 2005)

Amazon.com

Epigram:

"The fact is always obvious much too late, but the most singular difference between happiness and joy is that happiness is a solid and joy a liquid." --J.D. Salinger

"Touching and often funny... graced by elegant turns of phrase, a fresh way with metaphor and real insight. Brilliantly captures the great expectations and recurring ambivalence of youth."

-- New York Times Book Review

"A touching collection of stories about love in the city... (an) exceptionally memorable... spirited collection."

-- Time Magazine

 

"Beller's first collection of short stories is just the tonic for a New York City subway ride, a dentist's office, or any other venue thaty warrants taking your sense of humor out for some exercize... the best ones will satisfy again and again."

--San Francisco Review of Books

 

"Beller's simple yet elegant use of language, economy of action, and controlled manipulation of detgail are all evident here...(He) knows his subjects intimately, capturing with apparent ease and grace the awful, painstakingly slow movements they make toward and away from one another."

--St. Petersburg Times

 

"Startling... He has an uncanny ability to recognize and capture the moments in life that may appear insignificant but resound with such familiarity and importance that you are amazed this author understands you so well. And Beller is funny too--sarcastically, deprecatingly, wistfully funny."

--New Woman

 

"The Funny, poignant, delicately written short story collection, SEDUCTION THEORY, limns a particular slice of New York as tenderly and knowingly as Joyce captured his own hometown in Dubliners; like Joyce, Beller is a shrewd chronicler of male-female interactions."

--Juan Morales, Detour