<div>Known for his iconic film roles but also for his regular pieces in the <i>New Yorker</i> and his critically acclaimed plays, Eisenberg is an emerging literary voice.<br><br>Taking its title from a group of stories that begin the book, <i>Bream Gives Me Hiccups</i> moves from contemporary L.A. to the dorm rooms of an American college to ancient Pompeii, throwing the reader into a universe of social misfits, reimagines scenes from history, and ridiculous overreactions. In one piece, a tense email exchange between a young man and his girlfriend is taken over by his sister, who is obsessed with the Bosnian genocide (<i>This situation reminds be of a little historical blip called the Karadordevo agreement</i>); in another, a college freshman forced to live with a roommate is stunned when one of her ramen packets goes missing (<i>She didn't have &quot;one&quot; of my ramens. She had a chicken ramen</i>); in another piece, Alexander Graham Bell has teething problems with his invention (<i>I've been calling Mabel all day, she doesn't pick up! Yes, of course I dialed the right number—2!</i>).<br><br>In these forty-four stories, Eisenberg combines personal elements with highly imaginative settings, combining tenderness with a tragedy that lurks behind the jokey humor. The pieces, wryly amusing as single stories,become as a whole a touching exploration of the psychology of their protagonists.<br><br>United by Eisenberg’s gift for character, and grouped into chapters that open with illustrations by award-winning cartoonist Jean Jullien, the witty and moving pieces collected in<i>Bream Gives Me Hiccups</i> explore the various insanities of the modern world, and mark the arrival of a talented, self-ironic, and original writer.</div>