On the Rocks — Rebecca Donner

Many of today's most celebrated and up-and-coming writers have climbed the narrow staircase to the splintered podium at New York City's KGB Bar to share their work at the Sunday night fiction series. This funky East Village watering hole, once the expat meeting house of Ukrainian socialists, has grown over the last decade into one of the choicest venues for literary talent.On the Rocks compiles stories from some of the most talented writers of today, including David Gates, Mary Gaitskill, Jonathan Lethem, and Aimee Bender. Edgy, hard-bitten prose comes shoulder to shoulder with the lyrical and the fanciful, capturing the full range of voices in contemporary fiction. In subject and style, these pieces roam far and wide, but they all share the spirit of a night at KGB: provocative, daring, and dynamic.