Zero-Sum

More about the book

Zero-sum games are played for lethal stakes in these arresting stories by one of America's most acclaimed writers. A brilliant philosophy student attempts to seduce her renowned mentor but finds herself outmaneuvered. Diabolically clever high school girls exact vengeance on local sexual predators, while a woman stalked by a would-be killer may be confiding in the wrong former lover. Another young woman grapples with her unsettling new role as a mother. The collection's longest story features a much-praised writer who cruelly experiments with drafts of his own suicide. Through these powerfully wrought narratives, the author reflects on themes of erotic obsession, thwarted idealism, and shifting identities. The collection is provocative and stunning, reinforcing the author's status as a literary treasure and an artist of the mysterious interior life. Critics have praised the work as 'electric,' 'alluringly dark and spiky,' and 'brilliant - bloodied, breathless, weird.' The stories are dark and unsettling, with a simmering violence that serves as a disquieting alarm. The author is recognized as an inspired writer and formidable psychologist.