Bream Gives Me Hiccups and Other Stories

From Academy Award-nominated Jesse Eisenberg comes a collection of hilarious, absurd, poignant stories.

The series of stories that gives the book its unusual title are written from the point of view of a nine-year-old boy whose mother brings him to expensive Los Angeles restaurants so that she can bill her ex-husband for the meals.

Another series of stories are letters written by a university student to her high school counselor as she grows gradually more unhinged. Other stories imagine discussions in ancient Pompeii just before the volcanic eruption, explore the vagaries of post-gender-normative dating in New York City, and conjure up Alexander Graham Bell's first five phone calls: "Have you heard anything from Mabel? I've been calling her all day, she doesn't pick up! Yes, of course I dialed the right number--2!" Plus there is an email exchange between a boy and his girlfriend taken over by his sister who is obsessed with the Bosnian genocide, an ex-husband reviewing his wife's book online, and Marxist-Socialist jokes.

In different ways, the stories explore what it means to navigate the modern world, and are all illuminated by Eisenberg's ironic wit and fantastically funny and original voice.