They are absurd stories your stoned friend might unfold while giggling, but the best of them land at some insight into the human condition, all economy and charm. These tales join the one about a man who discovers that his girlfriend transforms every night into a hairy, heavyset couch potato, or the one about a woman who finds that her lover has a zipper in his mouth hiding another man inside, or the one about the talking goldfish that grants its owner three wishes. “Fly Already,” published by Riverhead, comes out in English in September. Practical and tiny issues.”Īs a police officer dragged him out of the smoking car, Keret focused on summing up his impending death: “All in all what is happening now, my death, is just a glitch at the edge of the galaxy.” And I was thinking to myself that I should have switched to a new agent because it will really be more difficult for my wife to work with my current agent. I was hoping that my wife would get remarried.

That I’d had a good life, but I was a little bit sad that it was short.

“I was waiting for the whole shebang, for all my life to pass before my eyes,” he said. The windshield shattered, the airbags exploded, and the car filled with the smell of fuel. Two years ago, he was on his way from Connecticut to Boston when his driver, speeding to get to the next reading, hit another car on the highway. He’ll be writing his three- or four-page tales, saving them to folders on his computer that he occasionally loses, then boom, something happens that ties them all together. For the short-story writer Etgar Keret, a new collection usually takes shape in response to some overwhelming event in his life.

לא באנו להנות by Etgar Keret