YOU ARE HERE: LAT HomeCollectionsBooks  Book review: 'Ether' by
Ben Ehrenreich  The novel follows a stranger through a hard-
boiled biblical noir.  November 06, 2011|By Margaret Wappler,
Los Angeles Times   • Author Ben Ehrenreich. Author Ben
Ehrenreich. (Ofelia Ortiz Cuevas, City…)   Ben Ehrenreich  City
Lights Books: 164 pp., $13.95 paper  In Ben Ehrenreich's second
novel, "Ether," a compact work of biblical noir, several small
creatures meet harsh ends, sometimes eulogized by dismissive
laughter, sometimes clumsily mourned. A mouse is stomped on, its
clotting blood striating the pavement. Hit by a car, a pigeon
lands in a flurry of feathers on the road. A deaf and mute woman
rescues a hummingbird whose heart is still whirring, but soon
death steals it away too. When it comes to the body count of
woodland cuties, "Ether" is like "Bambi" directed by Quentin
Tarantino.  Southern California writer Ehrenreich, who recently
won a National Magazine Award for "The End," his Los Angeles
magazine feature detailing th