‘[Fly Already] touches the heart of the experience of global disruption. The existence of Israel becomes a crumb of being in a world without hierarchies that has no single centre, and has no controlling point of view. Through the language and seeming lightheartedness of Etgar Keret emerges a very deep sadness. The different characters are connected to each other through alienation, loneliness, and a strong feeling of abandonment in the world. Keret has turned the genre of short stories into the refined and necessary literary expression of this time.’
Sapir Prize Judges’ Notes
‘Reading Fly Already is like settling down for a ride in a luxurious car with a world-class driver who has an extremely crazy worldview that doesn’t interfere with his amazing driving. Is there any better way to see the world?’
Elif Batuman
‘I am in awe of Keret’s ability to simultaneously make me laugh while crying, explore the joy and horror of everyday life with precision, brevity and great psychological depth. His recognition of and engagement with the absurd is profound and he never loses his humanity, his heart along the way.’
A.M. Homes
‘These stories — swervy, thrillingly funny, honest, and almost shockingly alert — disarm a reader in abundant ways. Keret will look at any situation and any type of character with an open eye to all defences, and slowly (or really quickly) peel these away.’
Aimee Bender
‘[O]nce again displays his knack for comic, absurd, occasionally dystopian observations … Saunders-esque speculative stories … Every piece demonstrates Keret’s admirable effort to play with structure and gleefully refuse to be polite about family, faith, and country. An irreverent storyteller who has yet to run out of social norms to skewer.’
Kirkus
‘A grandmaster of the incongruous, Keret’s flights of fancy range from a dash of fantasy to the outright absurd ... The strongest stories are those that maintain some tether to reality, making the discrepancies between our expectations and the outrageous occurrences concocted by Keret all the funnier. His dips into dystopia...are less compelling. The whimsical scenarios belie a deeper gloom ... Keret has always conveyed an underlying awareness of mortality in his work. But Fly Already displays a particular gravitas: most of its protagonists are grieving, or alienated ... It’s Keret’s particular brand of brilliance that can simultaneously hold tragedy and comedy, and in such compact packages.’/p>
Mia Levitin, Financial Times
‘An Israeli writer is making short stories fun again. Etgar Keret doesn't avoid a punchline. The fiction writer and This American Life regular tackles Big Important Subjects in his work — death, family, war, etc. — but he does so in a way that's not, well, a bummer — By embracing the comic and the absurd, Keret achieves something rare among modern short-story writers: He's actually worth reading.’
Men’s Journal
‘As a reader, you're so immersed in Keretworld, that the twist in the tale is particularly more outrageous and unexpected than usual. Fantastical, heart-breaking, laughter-inducing, fabulist, and sometimes just downright wacky, Keret’s writing is palpably imbued with a distinct element of intimacy, as though the author has just invited you into his local café or pub to chat about the state of the world — of our world — over your drink of choice. Keret’s stories shimmer with an energising, evocative amalgam of comedy, both dark and light, and a high-level tolerance for the absurd. And always — always — even when it feels as though he's finessing his pages with a giant shrug about the ridiculous vagaries of the universe, inherent in Keret’s writing is a resolute insistence on adhering to life, as well as to the ineluctable joys of wordplay … If you’re already familiar with Keret’s work, this is a welcome addition to his canon; if you haven’t read him yet, this collection is a terrific place to start.’
Daneet Steffens, Boston Globe
‘When you read an Etgar Keret story, it’s hard not to go straight to ‘genius’. The stories in this collection are wide-ranging, and many have that fantastical, highly imaginative Keret element. There is dark humour, wry humour, really-fucking-funny humour. There’s depth and sadness. And mostly there’s life: people falling into and out of relationships with themselves and others.’
GOOP
‘[R]azor-sharp, satiric wit and genre-shifting style.’
BBC
‘Like Lydia Davis, Etgar Keret has written stories of such singular diminutive style it took the culture a few years to realise: this is not a novelty act. This is the work of a genius, and he can pack more comedy and heartache into a single tale than just about any writer alive. A new book is cause for celebration.’
John Freeman, LitHub
‘Keret continues his streak of writing short stories that are mordantly funny and bizarre in his latest collection ... Threaded through his sense of humour, you feel a little less lonely, a little more light.’
Tomi Obaro, Buzzfeed
‘Sly and subversive collection ... full of modern-day fables about family, angels, UFOs, cloning and other weirdness.’
Chicago Tribune
‘It’s difficult to characterise the work of a writer as prodigiously talented as Keret ... for whom nothing seems off limits ... [S]mart, strange, completely enthralling ... [R]eaders new to Keret will be dazzled.’
Booklist
‘[Q]uirky, funny, touching, immensely readable, pure pleasure — and though most [stories] are very short, they are tightly scripted and satisfyingly complete. Originally written in Hebrew, the pieces in this fine collection lose nothing in translation; the wit and humanity of each tale survive intact. Ideal reading for short bursts of time or short attention spans.’
Library Journal
‘Clive James has called [Keret] “one of the most important writers alive” — and these 22 tales showcase why. In Keret’s world, whimsy often conceals gut-wrenching wisdom, and heartache usually comes laced with hilarity. If Kafka were reincarnated as a comedy writer in Tel Aviv, his work might look something like this … The invention in these stories is dazzling: time and again, Keret hits on an idea so good that another writer would turn it into a novel … Where older Israeli writers such as Amos Oz and David Grossman have railed like prophets against their nation’s sins, Keret mounts his protest in the form of pitch-black satire … Although the tales are divided between five translators, each captures Keret’s dry, almost clinical style superbly. The book shows a master of the short story pushing against the limits of what the form can achieve … There’s only one thing Keret is incapable of doing with a story: writing one that’s boring.’
Matt Rowland Hill, The Guardian
‘Israeli author Etgar Keret doesn’t just produce memorable short stories but short short stories … this collection features some of the darkest imagery Keret has brought to print to date … Keret plays with reality in ways that are reminiscent of Salman Rushdie but also have a splash of Kurt Vonnegut … In order to enjoy Keret’s stories you have to accept his approach: He cares less about Saki-like revelations, and more about crafting characters that feel like those you know, even if they’re dropped into absurd situations … Keret teases out humour in the darkest corners of our world, and his stories can have you laughing on one before clamping your throat shut with melancholy by the next. It’s a gift he’s brought to every collection … Keret has the admirable ability to find the poetry in gritty situations swirling with cannabis smoke and sour regrets. This marriage pulls in readers hungry to learn about the human condition and all its messiness.’
David Silverberg, The Washington Post
‘The stories of Israeli writer Etgar Keret comprise a kind of magic show, a mystical whirl of light and dark, humour and heartbreak. His new collection, Fly Already, transports us into his quirky yet profound world, shaped by an obsession with the twinned masks of comedy and tragedy reminiscent of writers as varied as George Saunders, Gary Shteyngart, and Isaac Bashevis Singer … To Keret’s credit, he never brings the Palestinian conflict into full focus, allowing his characters (usually men) to stumble through mishaps of their own making … Their reversals of fortune are both sudden and moving … Keret’s ear for the whacky and revelatory is pitch-perfect … Keret’s stories are not all created equal, but happily the misses are few. Fly Already showcases a writer with a wealth of tricks up his sleeve and a rich, slangy voice, a recognised talent on the global stage who deserves a wider American audience.’
Hamilton Cain, Chapter 16
‘Keret … balances gravitas and drollery … Stories … immediately engage … The endlessly inventive Keret finds the truth underlying even the simplest human interactions.’
Publishers Weekly
‘Etgar Keret’s latest collection of short stories will take you on an emotional rollercoaster … A great short story is a minor miracle: traversing the gamut of the human experience in a few short pages. In Fly Already, Keret manages this feat 22 times, with stories that encompass love and despair through an intelligent, eccentric lens.’
Happy Mag
‘One of Israel’s most celebrated writers ... Keret’s stories begin and end quickly; he creates a world in a few pages. Writing with economy and magic, he has an ear for the way people talk to each other.’
Sandee Brawarsky, Australian Jewish News
‘Keret writers with a twinkle in his eye, sprinkling his work with a good amount of humour despite the dark content ... each piece is entertaining, satisfying, and quickly done.’
Margot Lloyd, The Advertiser
‘[A] master of the genre.’
Anna Aslanyan, The Spectator
‘Israeli writer Etgar Keret is a challenging, wildly imaginative writer who writes some scenarios that can knock the breath out of the unwary reader.’
Kerryn Goldsworthy, The Age
‘Keret doesn’t simply write unforgettable short stories (half a dozen pages is common), but some consist of a meagre, yet nonetheless magical, 500 words. His work is at times reminiscent of Murakami, Rushdie, Marquez, Kafka, Vonnegut and Shalom Aleichem (and even Rabbi Nachman of Breslov), yet Etgar Keret’s voice is clearly his own.’
Geoffrey Zygier, J-Wire
‘His brief tales, filled with black wit and iron whimsy, are wise without ever fully relinquishing pure comedy.’
The Australian, Georgie Williamson
Praise for The Seven Good Years:
‘[Keret’s writing] testifies to the power of the surreal, the concise and the fantastic … oblique, breezy, seriocomic fantasies that defy encapsulation, categorisation and even summary.’
The Washington Post
Praise for The Seven Good Years:
‘Keret possesses an imagination not easily slotted into conventional literary categories. His … short stories might be described as Kafkaesque parables, magic-realist knock-knock jokes or sad kernels of cracked cosmic wisdom.’
The New York Times
Praise for The Seven Good Years:
‘Keret’s stories are funny, with tons of feeling, driving towards destinations you never see coming. They’re written in the most unpretentious, chatty voice possible, but they’re also weirdly poetic. They stick in your gut. You think about them for days.’
Ira Glass, This American Life
