Reviews / THE BIRTH OF THE WORLD AS WE KNOW IT; OR, TEIRESIAS
by Meredith Steinbach

Publisher's Weekly: ". . . a metaphysical tour de force. Steinbach's writing is as elegant as a neoclassical column."

St. Louis Post Dispatch: "Her latest work of fiction, 'The Birth of the World as We Know It,' [is] a witty cross-breeding of Greek tragedy and contemporary fiction. Think James Joyce and Homer in a running conversation."

Marjorie Garber, Harvard University, Vice Versa : "I take the liberty of quoting at length because Steinbach's work is not as familiar as Eliot's or Joyce's, and also because Steinbach does something they do not. She imagines Teiresias in the moment that will answer the gods' question."

Chicago Tribune: "The source of the considerable strength of "Teiresias" resides not only in the vividness with which Steinbach imagines each event of her narrator's life, but in her willingness to let those episodes collect and cumulatively resonate in her reader's imagination. . . . narrated with an extraordinary and just passion."

Harvard Review: "superbly orchestrated, ornate, convoluted retelling, one in which she has spiced up, ad-libbed, and otherwise domesticated, re-routed, authenticated, and tampered with the archetypes. Steinbach seems to be following no other voice than her own; the result is a shamanistic meditation on the telling of time, the telling of history."

Boston Review: "She is like Joyce, mingling an ironic undertone with sensuous descriptions of vintage cosmetics, sexual sporting, war, and grief. Plot is shiftily dispersed throughout the book, playfully revising the natural sequence of events, so that the novel reads rather like a long, accelerating prose poem borne forward by its rhythms."

Reviews/ ZARA
by Meredith Steinbach

John Hawkes: "Rich, horrific, beautiful, Zara, is about the life of a woman extraordinary in every way, and is written in prose as strong and fabulous as Zara herself. I could not admire more this profound and exhilarating novel."

Hilma Wolitzer: "Zara is a beautifully realized character whose story is constantly engaging and moving. Ms. Steinbach is gifted and nervy and her book is very accomplished."

Boston Review: "She's a critic of myth who also chooses to redream and brilliantly reinvent it. In Zara , . . . she considers the challenge of heroism in an American setting."

Los Angeles Times Book Review: "Steinbach probes vulnerability, futility in a style interlaced with quality and power."

Chicago Tribune: "The completely written quality of Zara marks an author page by page discovering the giddy limits of her talent. . . . I doubt a finer first novel will be published this year."

Chicago Magazine: "A rare, invaluable prize."

Boston Magazine: "A masterpiece."

Reviews/HERE LIES THE WATER
by Meredith Steinbach

Hungry Mind Review: "There's far more metaphor in Here Lies the Water than plot or character. Let's read it like a poem. The descriptive language is remarkable. . . . We are sustained by loss, memory, and the order and beauty of art. . . . Steinbach's prose is opulent, musical, disconcerting."

The New York Times Book Review: "Meredith Steinbach would probably cringe at the comparison, but her second novel is the spookiest tale of life gone wrong in suburbia since Ira Levin's "Stepford Wives." . . . As these revelations mount, . . . its gorgeous but sometimes soporific prose becomes its strength, for it makes the wallop that's packed at the end even more powerful."

Reviews/RELIABLE LIGHT
by Meredith Steinbach

Publishers Weekly: "In this collection of seven stories, Steinbach again distinguishes herself as a writer of sensitivity and grace."

The New York Times Book Review: "Meredith Steinbach has won both a Pushcart Prize and an O. Henry Award for short fiction, and it's easy to see why. At her best, she gives us what we want from stories: root emotion recognized through someone else's consciousness."