"Everybody's youth is a dream, a form of chemical madness," Fitzgerald writes in The Diamond as Big as the Ritz. Yet, in this collection's title story, youthful dreams have given way to relentless loneliness and loss. Whether they're dissipated expatriates, hard-drinking New Yorkers, moonstruck Southerners, or ambitious children of the Plains, Fitzgerald's characters are unmistakably American, and his compassion suffuses even their despair with a golden glow.

Havi Hoffman