In Singer's latest book, the engine is story-telling, but beneath the plots lurk layers of madness and magic, as well as startling, genre-busting juxtapositions. For example, two related stories, "Buying a Car" and "Selling a Car, " are N.Y. City picaresques combined with technical automotive detail and the history of a marriage. Written almost three decades apart, these two stories mirror their times, from the 1970's recession to the wave of immigration that was a by-product of the war in Afghanistan.


The play, "Voir, Dear, " is also about an immigrant (Russian-Jewish), its themes are race, justice, language, and family relationships. Race and justice are also the themes of "Simple, " and family relationships are at the heart of "Norman's Cousin." The final piece in the collection, "Flagman, " is about a Cuban immigrant, but the narrator is a racist and nativist. A constant note in this edgy, passionate collection is mockery of public officials. A leitmotif is the inexorable rise in the cost-of-living, as well as other important changes to life in the city.


Norman's Cousin & Other Writings is full of allusions to literature and the other arts. "Simple" takes its title from Langston Hughes, and alludes to the history of rhythm-and-blues. "Carla, the Copy-Shop Girl, " a satirical libretto, is an analogue to Melville's "Bartleby, The Scrivener, " with echoes of Horatio Alger. "The Rented Pet" combines several genres, including local color, animal saga, and Grade-B Hollywood melodrama. As the heroine, Mildred Schapp, says when she rents the grizzled canine hero, Rex, "I like ... an older dog.