Nicholas Delbanco, best known for his novels, enjoys a reputation for being a writer's writer. As this designation indicates, Delbanco concerns himself most intensely with the craft of writing fiction; he is a writer who seriously and consciously labors over the sound and structure of his work, who insists just as emphatically upon the practice as upon the gift of art. While this sense of craftsmanship is apparent in Delbanco's novels, it is particularly and dramatically present in his short stories, where compression and concision draw the reader's attention to the author's artfulness.

Delbanco's stylistic rigor and precision have a certain Old World quality, as befits his familial history. Both his parents came from families of substance. His mother's family were bankers in Berlin; his father's family were in the import-export business, and the Delbanco name could be traced to Venice, where the Delbancos were bankers and moneylenders...