A short-story collection from the acclaimed author of The Great Believers Named a must-read by the  Chicago Tribune , O Magazine,  BuzzFeed ,   The Huffington Post ,   Minneapolis Star-Tribune , and  The L Magazine Rebecca Makkai’s first two novels, The Borrower and The Hundred-Year House , have established her as one of the freshest and most imaginative voices in fiction. Now, the award-winning writer, whose stories have appeared in four consecutive editions of The Best American Short Stories, returns with a highly anticipated collection bearing her signature mix of intelligence, wit, and heart. A reality show producer manipulates two contestants into falling in love, even as her own relationship falls apart. Just after the fall of the Berlin Wall, a young boy has a revelation about his father’s past when a renowned Romanian violinist plays a concert in their home. When the prized elephant of a traveling circus keels over dead, the small-town minister tasked with burying its remains comes to question his own faith. In an unnamed country, a composer records the folk songs of two women from a village on the brink of destruction. These transporting, deeply moving stories—some inspired by her own family history—amply demonstrate Makkai’s extraordinary range as a storyteller, and confirm her as a master of the short story form.  “Richly imagined.” — Chicago Tribune   “Impressive.” — O, The Oprah Magazine   “Engrossing.” — Minneapolis Star-Tribune   “Inventive.” — W Magazine   “Ricocheting from the war-torn twentieth century to the reality-show-rich present day, the stories in this impressive collection feature characters buffeted by fate—or is it mere happenstance? . . . Our sense of history is probed, too, not without humor.” —The New Yorker    “It’s impossible to resist the spell this collection’s 17 stories weave. Wide in range and deep in feeling,  Music for Wartime  further confirms what  The Hundred-Year House  made clear: Rebecca Makkai is a writer of the first order, a writer whose name deserves to become well known among all discerning readers of fiction.” —The Philadelphia Inquirer    “[Makkai’s] stories were anthologized in  The Best American Short Stories  for four years in a row, and  Music for Wartime  proves these honors were well-deserved, highlighting her poised voice, willingness to experiment, deft hand at structure, and capacity to surprise… Makkai brilliantly demonstrates that art can never be merely tangential to the lives of people who care about it.” — Dallas   Morning News “[An] excellent debut collection of stories . . . characterized by a striking blend of whimsy and poignancy, elegy and ebullience . . . [that] demonstrate an impressive range. . . . While some stories are straightforwardly realistic and others wildly fantastical, all are witty, rueful and wise. . . . I look forward with great anticipation . . . to anything else this immensely gifted writer produces.” — Priscilla Gilman, The Boston Globe   “A beautiful book and a must-read . . . Rebecca Makkai is a rising literary star, whose short stories appeared just about everywhere, before she turned to writing novels. So this is an exciting and exceptional return to the short story for Makkai, and for all of us.” — Vanity Fair   “[Makkai’s] writing about music is informed and inquisitive. . . . ‘Playful and crisp and strangely elfin’ are words I would use to describe my favorite story in this book . . . [which] is about a reality television producer. . . . Ms. Makkai is shrewd about the unpretty manner in which reality TV is made . . . [and] the heartbreak in this story feels particular, grainy: real. . . . It’s a gut-punch that lands.” — Dwight Garner, The New York Times  “Richly imagined.” — Chicago Tribune, “Summer’s Best New Releases” "Engrossing." — Minneapolis Star-Tribune,  “Summer books: 10 novels not to miss — and so much more” “[An] impressive first volume of stories.” — O, The Oprah Magazine, “The Season’s Best Literary Fiction”   “Exceptional . . . [Makkai] writes with economic precision, excising extraneous details or extra commas; she designs a catalog of unique structures to convey her meanings; and she narrates with unflagging confidence, secure in her experimentations and digressions. . . . Provocative, compelling reading.” — Cleveland Plain-Dealer “ ‘The Briefcase' . . . is a story that displays remarkable compression, force and agility, and is also one of the very few I’ve read that would fit just as snugly into Kafka’s oeuvre as it would into Amy Hempel’s or Joy Williams’.” —Kevin Brockmeier in The Arkansas Times “The short story is the ideal venue for Makkai’s considerable talent, not only for drawing nuanced characterizations, but for contriving strange and fascinating premises. . . . With Music for Wartime, Makkai takes her place – one she deserves – among the artists with aplomb.” — The Guardian   “[Makkai’s] storie