Debriefing: Collected Stories

This complete collection of National Book Award winner Sontag's (In America; The Volcano Lover) short fiction, edited by Taylor (Saul Bellow: Letters), contains 11 eclectic stories. "Pilgrimage," the first work, is a sweet, humorous, and expertly crafted tale of two teenagers meeting Thomas Mann. This is followed by a piece that reads more like a poem ("Project for a Trip to China") and then an imaginative, surreal tale ("American Spirits"). In "The Dummy," a man unsatisfied with his life makes a robotic replica of himself to perform what he views as daily drudgery, allowing him to devote all of his attention to pleasure. His family and coworkers are not able to tell the difference between the real man and the robot. "Debriefing," the title work, provides a friend's accounting of an elusive woman named Julia. Ultimately, these works cannot be easily defined; they are often experimental, quite beautiful, and represent the freedom and courage of a mind in love with language.