"Here are eighteen stories of astonishing range and precision. A housewife drinks alone in her Connecticut living room. A guillotine glimmers above a sleepy town green. A pre-recorded customer service message sends a caller into a reverie of unspeakable yearning. With the deft touch and funhouse-mirror perspectives for which he has won countless admirers, Steven Millhauser gives us the towns, marriages, and families of a quintessential American lifestyle that is at once instantly recognizable and profoundly unsettling. Disruptions is a provocative, utterly original new collection from a writer at the peak of his form"--

One summer night -- After the beheading -- Guided tour -- Late -- Little people -- Theater of shadows -- Fight -- A haunted house story -- Summer of ladders -- Circle of punishment -- Green -- Thank you for your patience -- A tired town -- Kafka in high school -- A common predicament -- Change -- He takes, she takes -- Column dwellers of our town