I think it was somewhere around the fifth or sixth layer of scribbled Post-it notes on top of each already note-strewn page in the composition book I’d bought especially for writing down every single impression I had while preparing to review Geeta Kothari’s short story collection, I Brake for Moose and Other Stories, that I started to doubt my ability to write even one coherent sentence about this book.

In 1992, in my former life as a free-lance violinist in New York City, I was one of 86 performers invited to participate in the world premiere of Cage’s Atlas Eclipticalis at Carnegie Hall.

I Brake for Moose, Geeta Kothari’s debut story collection, throws into sharp focus the conflicts between identity and culture in a globalized world. In these eleven subtly connected stories, Kothari explores the deep challenges to self, presented by an uncompromising American value system that seeks to erase difference and make invisible the humanity of those who are not the same.