Ether

Evgenia Citkowitz's debut collection of short stories and a novella, Ether, is a mixed bag. Set in both England and Los Angeles—Citkowitz's birthplace and current home respectively—the stories are overstuffed with layers of significant information which get lost in a preponderance of one-sentence paragraphs and surface detail. A lawyer takes advantage of an incorrectly priced item to pull a fast one on an antiques shop owner, and though it's not explicitly spelled out, he's also exacting a substitute revenge on his wealthy birth father who left him nothing in his will. A nameless mother, with a mentally handicapped child adopted to compensate for a failed acting career and the lingering burn from humiliating relationships, finds a homeless girl sleeping in her backyard and drives her away. Racked with guilt, she vows that next time she'll invite the girl to stay, and Citkowitz suggests that the guilt stems from an abortion the mother had years before, and the feeling that the homeless girl is about the same age her aborted child would have been if it had lived. Cramped and needlessly complex, stories that could be emotionally affecting are not. But the novella "Ether," in which Citkowitz stretches out and gives her doomed lovers—and herself—the proper amount of space in which to tell their story, reveals her to be a writer in command of her material. Her novel will be something to look forward to.