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Someone to Talk To | Introduction

Deborah Eisenberg's "Someone to Talk To" first appeared in the New Yorker magazine on September 27, 1993. Four years later, it was included in her fourth collection of short stories, entitled All Around Atlantis. The story chronicles the journey of concert pianist Aaron Shapiro, fresh from a breakup with his longtime girlfriend, to an unspecified Latin American country where he is scheduled to perform his first concert in many years. When he arrives, he learns that the concert promoters are affiliated with the oppressive military regime that is currently in power.

Deborah Eisenberg traveled extensively throughout Central America in the 1980s, and several of her short stories are set in this region, exploring themes of oppression, persecution, and the indifference that allows these things to continue. The relationship between the powerful and the powerless is examined through the eyes of Shapiro, who is powerless himself, unable to halt the downward spiral of his career or the failure of his relationship.

Someone to Talk To Summary

The story begins as Caroline, Aaron Shapiro's live-in girlfriend of six years, is leaving him for another man (identified only as "Jim"). She leaves him with both a broken heart and her cat, ironically named Lady Chatterley ("Jim, evidently, was allergic"). As she walks out the door, she tells Aaron, "I'll always care about you, you know."

In the next scene, Aaron wakes up in a shabby hotel somewhere in Latin America, and as he reminisces about his relationship with Caroline, the reader learns that Aaron is a concert pianist who was once hailed as a star on the rise, but lately he has been forced to make ends meet by giving piano lessons to "startlingly untalented children." Shapiro's growing depression over his failing career (and the related financial difficulties) gradually eroded his relationship with Caroline, whose privileged background made it difficult for her to understand Shapiro's anxieties about money. Ironically, it was when the relationship was already damaged beyond repair that Shapiro received an invitation to play his first big concert in years in Latin America. (The country is not specified but bears a strong resemblance to Guatemala.)

Still reeling from Caroline's departure, Aaron leaves his tiny hotel room and heads to the hotel restaurant to meet with Richard Penwad, a representative of the group staging the concert. Pompous and elitist, Penwad is clearly uncomfortable in Shapiro's presence, as though he considers him one of the lower classes, like the ragged, emaciated native Indians who wait on them in the restaurant. During his conversation with Penwad, Aaron learns that the group sponsoring the concert is affiliated with the military government in power, the same government that has brutally oppressed and persecuted these native people. Uncomfortable with this knowledge, Shapiro reminds himself of his money woes: "Fee plus lessons, minus rent, minus utilities."

After breakfast, Penwad drives Aaron to the Arts Center for rehearsal. As the orchestra begins to play, Shapiro is horrified; "the sound was so peculiar that he feared he was suffering from some neurological damage." However, once Aaron himself begins to play, he... ยป Complete Someone to Talk To Summary