A Study Guide for Deborah Eisenberg's "Someone to Talk To"

By Gale and Cengage

A Study Guide for Deborah Eisenberg's "Someone to Talk To," excerpted from Gale's acclaimed Short Stories for Students. This concise study guide includes plot summary; character analysis; author biography; study questions; historical context; suggestions for further reading; and much more. For any literature project, trust Short Stories for Students for all of your research needs.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cengage Learning - Gale
• Release date: Jul 15, 2016
• ISBN: 9781535833547

Book preview

1

Someone to Talk To

Deborah Eisenberg

1993

Introduction

Deborah Eisenberg's Someone to Talk To first appeared in the New Yorker magazine on September 27, 1993. Four years later, it was included in her fourth collection of short stories, entitled All Around Atlantis. The story chronicles the journey of concert pianist Aaron Shapiro, fresh from a breakup with his longtime girlfriend, to an unspecified Latin American country where he is scheduled to perform his first concert in many years. When he arrives, he learns that the concert promoters are affiliated with the oppressive military regime that is currently in power.

Deborah Eisenberg traveled extensively throughout Central America in the 1980s, and several of her short stories are set in this region, exploring themes of oppression, persecution, and the indifference that allows these things to continue. The relationship between the powerful and the powerless is examined through the eyes of Shapiro, who is powerless himself, unable to halt the downward spiral of his career or the failure of his relationship.

Author Biography

Deborah Eisenberg was born in Chicago, Illinois, on November 20, 1945. She grew up in Winnetka, a middle-class Chicago suburb. Her father, George, was a pediatrician, and her mother, Ruth, was a housewife. As one of the few Jewish students at her school, wearing a full-torso brace to correct her scoliosis, Eisenberg was a misfit and, according to Dinitia Smith, a self-admitted behavior problem. Her parents responded by sending her to boarding school in Vermont in the early 1960s. Afterwards, she stayed on in Vermont to attend Marlboro College, studying Latin and Greek. Then Eisenberg left Vermont for New York City, where she earned a B.A. at the New School for Social Research in 1968.

Eisenberg worked in New York for seven years as a secretary and waitress before she became a writer. It was during this time that she met actor Wallace Shawn, whose father was then the editor of the New Yorker. They fell in love, and Shawn encouraged her to begin writing. At first, she concentrated on writing for the stage; her play, Pastorale, was produced by the Second Stage