Kissing in Manhattan

“Checkers and Donna,” the first of 13 stories in David Schickler’s collection, Kissing in Manhattan, floored me with its originality and edginess. It’s a regular old story about two people playing the First Date Game, but Schickler’s portrayal of characters in this (and all the stories) is unexpectedly refreshing and real, though extreme and fragile. The characters’ trials and tribulations are based on a desire that nearly everyone struggles with: connection with others. The centerpiece of the book is the austere Preemption apartment building, in New York City, with its ancient Otis elevator. By about the fourth story, the names of people and the places they frequent begin to reappear, and, like life, the degree of separation proves to be minute. Schickler’s endings are great, too, as if he’s holding down a pause button, which he may release at some later time. Interplay in real life neither stops abruptly nor continues forever, either.