Acquainted with the Night

Name: Acquainted with the Night
Author: Lynne Sharon Schwartz

A rich and diverse collection of stories detailing life in all its daily battles and yearnings
Lynne Sharon Schwartz is a master of tone, deft at creating realistic settings and characters. In Acquainted with the Night, she unleashes sixteen wickedly smart, wholly believable short stories. In the title story, for instance, a man’s nocturnal battle against a floating globule in his eye forces him to question his very state of being. In “Mrs. Saunders Writes to the World,” an anonymous old woman attempts to force people to know her first name by writing “FRANNY” in big red letters all over her neighborhood. In another, a girl must to deal with the increasingly juvenile actions of her divorced mother. By turns darkly humorous, moving, and witty, Acquainted with the Night demonstrates Schwartz’s genius for detail.

Lynne Sharon Schwartz

Lynne Sharon Schwartz (b. 1939) is a celebrated author of novels, poems, short fiction, and criticism. Schwartz began her career with a series of short stories before publishing her first novel, the National Book Award–nominated Rough Strife (1980). She went on to publish works of memoir, poetry, and translation. Her other novels have included the award-nominated Leaving Brooklyn (1989) and Disturbances in the Field (1983). Her short fiction has appeared in theBest American Short Stories annual anthology series several times. In addition, her reviews and criticism have appeared in numerous magazines and newspapers. Schwartz lives in New York City, and is currently a faculty member of the Bennington Writing Seminars.