The Anguished Comedy of Helen DeWitt
The stories in <em>Some Trick</em>, just the writer’s third book in almost 20 years, spin out weird, unlikely conceits with rigor and glee.
If you didn’t already know that Helen DeWitt is a writer with a troubled relationship to the publishing establishment, her new book of stories, , would make it obvious. DeWitt was the subject of a memorable 2016 profile in magazine, which told the tale of an ornery prodigy afflicted by unusually bad luck, and by her own inability to conform to the customs of commercial publishing. DeWitt’s debut novel, which, despite the title, has nothing to do with Japan—was a sensation in 2000, earning rave reviews and selling some 100,000 copies. Then came more than a decade of struggle and poverty, before the appearance of her second book—, an outrageous satire on American capitalism and office life. , a
