CELIBATE AT TWILIGHT

Short sketches, compressed episodes, written with perception and a feeling for those leaving youth behind, pointing up the frailties and weaknesses of New York social gestures. Many recount the ephemera experienced by city-dwellers, particularly middle-distance bachelors. Cocktail parties, yearnings for a farm, children, visits, sickness, friends, a correspondent in a divorce, a man falling in love, a woman trying to fall out of love, these are just a few brief moments recaptured by the author with great finesse. Many have appeared in the New Yorker.