Woody Allen has been crafting comic stories since the 1970s, though he is best known for his film work and his stage plays. His Hairless work spent four months on the New York Times bestseller list, cementing him as a witty voice in American humor and a proponent of the absurd. His stories, often serialized in magazines, were eventually compiled into volumes and repeatedly earned critical praise. Gravity Zero appears now as a storybook, with about half of it initially published in The New Yorker, opening with the birth of one of Allen’s recurring motifs.
Often mischievous, these pieces feel like tiny comic treats in which Allen blends satire and whimsy. The opening line of the book already sets the mood and anchors Allen’s signature comic code: Anyone who tosses a lit match into the hold of an ordnance ship can testify that the smallest action can spark a chorus of noise. These events arrive with surprising frequency, from tense run-ins with the police to sudden, ridiculous outcomes. A bouncing stick from a supposed expert IQ or a revelation that Mike Tyson has an 18-guest room for unusual gatherings complicate the plots, yet many stories lean toward caricature and moral commentary. Some narratives feel overly schematic, both in setup and character portraits, as if real estate agents, Hollywood producers, failed actors, and writers chasing Broadway glory populate tales that, while sprinkled with humor, sometimes drift into the merely perfunctory.
Allen also returns to a familiar method, often drawing a story from a news item, a book, or a single anecdote to frame his tale. From a biography of Warren Beatty detailing his endless bedroom adventures, he fashions a story about a journalist and a licentious, methodical actor who structures his life to maximize artistic conquests in love. A pillow advertisement is transformed into a pretext for a seasoned traveler who uncovers an incredibly long-lived civilization, its secret rooted in the restful sleep provided by a miraculous pillow. In one of the more controversial pieces, Cyrus makes a pointed statement about consensual relationships, using a fictional analogy to critique the extremes of political correctness. The collection repeatedly tests boundaries and satirizes cultural norms with keen, sometimes provocative, humor.
bittersweet pastries
There is also a playful use of language through puns that name characters with teasing edges, including terms that suggest harpy, bedbug, or shark. The translator of the edition is praised for capturing this abundance with a thorough note listing a wide array of ambiguous nouns. The volume features a notable roster of animal-centered stories as well. A cultured nerd who plans to punish a smug film director, two individuals swindled by a rogue financier, a figure reincarnated as a lobster, and a duo who tries to expose a director’s creation by confronting him with chickens learning to craft successful plays all populate these pages.
With few exceptions, reading these stories leaves a bittersweet aftertaste. The prose shines and the humor lands less consistently, giving the impression of a late phase in Allen’s literary arc. The wit is lighter, the tension thinner, and the energy of the classic Allen voice feels less prominent. Yet the standout closing piece, Growing Up in Manhattan, shifts the balance. This longer tale abandons broader strokes for precise storytelling reminiscent of Annie Hall and Hannah and Her Sisters. It brings together a budding playwright who marries early and falls for a movie-on-the-move in a Manhattan setting, an alluring but distant love interest, and a relationship charged with insecurity, jealousy, and social distance. The dialogue remains sharp and the emotional core is credible. Everything converges to a satisfying, memorable moment. For a time, readers sense a return to the best Woody Allen voice—a story that feels like a long-awaited cinematic moment reimagined in prose, a rare instance where the page captures the flavor of a film that once played vividly on the screen.