Frozen in Time: Twenty Stories

Taylor Trade Publishing, 2016. hardcover. Very Good/Very Good. 6x0x9. 2016 Taylor Trade Publishing (Lanham, Maryland), 6 1/4 x 9 1/4 inches tall grey cloth hardcover in publisher's unclipped dust jacket, red lettering to spine, 273 pp. A near fine copy - clean, bright and unmarked - in a like dust jacket which is nicely preserved and displayed in a clear archival Brodart sleeve. ~SP23~ [2.0P] The estimable Joseph Epstein - essayist, past editor of The American Scholar, and recipient of the 2003 National Humanities Medal along with Hal Holbrook and John Updike - brings together twenty short stories in his first such collection since 2010. Most, though not all, of the stories are set in Epstein's hometown of Chicago, but otherwise they have a variety of subjects: among the titles are 'Dad's Gay,' 'The Casanova of LaSalle Street,' 'JDate,' 'Adultery,' 'Widow's Pique,' 'Race Relations,' 'The Man on Whom Everything Was Lost,' 'My Five Husbands,' and 'Second Family.' Most are stories about family and friendships.