Shakespeare’s Kitchen.

Segal, Lore (author).

Most claims that the stories of a collection are “interrelated” seem intended to sway short story–phobic readers into thinking that they’re getting a novel; most such claims are false. Segal’s latest, however, her first major work of fiction since Her First American (1985), delivers such a continuum that one wonders how well some of these stories work out of sequence, even despite their New Yorker pedigree. The story treats Ilka Weisz, who accepts a position at a think tank called the Concordance Institute, and her struggle to form a new family out of friends and coworkers (in particular the director, Leslie Shakespeare, and his wife, Eliza). Her entry into the claustrophobic academic setting, combined with Segal’s wonderfully funny power washing of conversational dynamics, is a perfect way to explore the roles we play and the truths and lies we tell ourselves about ourselves. Yes, at some level it’s a comedy of manners set in academia, but given the light touch with which Segal shares her immense powers of observation—and the darker presence of death, which reminds us that cocktail hour must someday end—that’s entirely forgivable.