Death by Pastrami by Leonard S. Bernstein

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In these seventeen wry stories, Bernstein introduces us to the unsung residents of NYCs garment district — proud lace sewers, unscrupulous ragmen, and salesmen with a penchant for stolen pens. Bernstein is a master of brevity — most stories clock in at under ten pages and he is most concerned with the particulars of human yearning. A man offers a million dollars for a first-rate human heart. An engineer chooses the suit he will wear every day for the rest of his life. A funeral salesman discovers the deadly power of the pastrami sandwich. In their breadth, these stories capture a New York that recedes further into memory every year: a garment district populated by people with at least a passing acquaintanceship with the old country and older ways of making things.