Thirst

'Thirst is a book to give to people who piss and moan about the unpromising future of American fiction. There are hip, funny writers, and there are smart, technically innovative writers, and there are wise, moving and profound writers. Kalfus is all these at once, and the stories in Thirst manage simultaneously to delight, impress, provoke and redeem. Three cheers and then some.' David Foster Wallace

Thirst is a feast of wit and imaginative writing, its concerns...
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'Thirst is a book to give to people who piss and moan about the unpromising future of American fiction. There are hip, funny writers, and there are smart, technically innovative writers, and there are wise, moving and profound writers. Kalfus is all these at once, and the stories in Thirst manage simultaneously to delight, impress, provoke and redeem. Three cheers and then some.' David Foster Wallace

Thirst is a feast of wit and imaginative writing, its concerns ranging from love to poverty to baseball, seamlessly travelling from the realm of experience to that of the spirit. The stories are set in a variety of locales, including a rain-drenched Third World jungle, a plague-ridden Renaissance Venice and - in a homage to the great Italian writer, Italo Calvino - an inventory of shopping malls recounted by Marco Polo to Kubla Khan.

The tragedy in the stories is always leavened by a keen sense of the absurdity of humanity, and the writing style dazzles and envelops the reader in wonder.