SOURCE: “Walter Abish and the Topographies of Desire,” in Contingent Meanings: Postmodern Fiction, Mimesis, and the Reader, Florida State University Press, 1990, pp. 82–108.

In the following essay, Varsava argues that a major theme in Abish's fiction is the tension between a superficial perfection and a profound moral and emotional void.

Viennese Jews, Walter Abish and his family fled Hitler's Austria for China. Unbeknown to him, there lurked below Vienna's surface decorum, concealed by the refinement and prosperity of a former imperial center, a most virulent ethno-racial hate. And how did such a world appear to a boy of seven or eight? Life, Abish tells us, was very much an affair of surfaces for him, a mistaking of the apparent for the real. Reassured by the props of his childhood—favorite toys, a comfortable home, a supportive family—Abish viewed life as a harmonious arrangement of people and objects. Writing...