The New Order

September 1, 2018
Bender, whose last book of stories (Refund, 2015, etc.) was a National Book Award finalist, generally uses world events as the background for fiction focused on domestic life, but these 11 stories make our current sociopolitical landscape the subject."Where To Hide in a Synagogue" sets the volume's demoralized tone; while discussing with a friend how to protect their congregation from attack, a woman realizes their relationship won't survive their disagreement over whom to trust or fear. Fear, along with anger and guilt, defines all the female, mostly Jewish characters here. Years after a woman is sexually assaulted in "The Elevator," the trauma affects her behavior in another elevator. The protagonist's financial panic underlies "Three Interviews" as she loses three job offers by inadvertently heightening the secret fears (maternal, romantic, medical) of her interviewers. Hidden hurts and fears push ultraconservative "Mrs. America" to campaign for the Senate whatever the moral and psychological cost. In "This Is Who You Are," a teenager in 1974 struggles with both her Jewish identity and guilt over ostracizing a friend misused by a predatory teacher. The title story knots guilt and fear even more tightly as two contemporary middle-aged women admit the very different guilt each has carried since a deadly shooting at their 1970s middle school. While these stories explore relationships along with issues, "The Department of Happiness and Reimbursement" abandons domestic realism, imagining a near future in which all jobs are government controlled, walled compounds house the unemployed, and a "national game show" awards contestants abandoned mansions. Liberal condescension mars "On a Scale of One To Ten," about nonobservant Jews who briefly consider enrolling their child in a Christian school before rejecting "Jesus's desire to love us." The closing story, "The Cell Phones," about a Rosh Hashanah service interrupted by needy callers, offers a tiny sliver of optimism for those willing to listen to each other.Riveting if polemical, and mostly bleak, depictions of America.

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September 24, 2018
Bender’s incisive collection (following Refund) touches on a range of hot-button issues—from gun violence and political xenophobia to sexual harassment and economic downturn. In “Where to Hide in a Synagogue,” preparations for protecting a temple from hate crimes lead two old friends to renegotiate their relationship. “Mrs. America” follows a woman’s campaign for office in North Carolina, which devolves into a slanderous mess when she incorporates her opponent’s dog into attacks on his viability for office. Aside from the dystopian “The Department of Happiness and Reimbursement” and the parablelike “The Cell Phones,” Bender’s stories maintain a grounded, subdued realism. The great strength of the collection lies in her ability to examine the ramifications of violence and casual cruelty on individuals and communities. The title story is perhaps the most successful at this: following a shooting, members of a middle school orchestra audition for their deceased peer’s seat, an assignment with lifelong repercussions for the survivors. “There were many types of violence in the world, some quieter,” the speaker notes. This is a thoughtful, timely collection.

Starred review from October 1, 2018
Closed spaces?elevators, offices, an airplane, classrooms?amplify the inner dramas of Bender's watchful, anxious, feverishly expressive narrators in her second short story collection, following Refund (2015), a National Book Award finalist. In the title story, in which two competitive friends abruptly part ways after a school shooting, the new order refers to the seating arrangement in a student orchestra, but the phrase takes on many shades of meaning as Bender's characters navigate an array of unnerving situations. Two older women try to assess the security of a synagogue. A sensitive Hebrew-school student conflates the fate of an Israeli girl killed in a terrorist attack with a friend's encounter with a pedophile coach. A white woman political candidate takes the low road against her opponent, a man of Lebanese descent. In each of Bender's emotionally intimate tales, perplexed and traumatized girls and women confront the opacity of the thoughts and feelings of others, even those closest to them. Three Interviews is an exquisitely choreographed story about both a woman desperate for employment and the angst of potential employers. In the darkly satiric and dystopian The Department of Happiness and Reimbursement, jobs are rare and imperiled. With literary virtuosity, psychological authenticity, and breath-catching insight, Bender dramatizes gripping personal dilemmas compounded by a new order of social tyranny(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)