cover image Lipstick on the Host

Lipstick on the Host

Aidan Mathews. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt P, $21.95 (306pp) ISBN 978-0-15-152575-1

Dense, rich and challenging prose distinguishes these six short stories by an award-winning Irish writer. ``All in a Day's Donkey-Work'' and ``Two Windows and a Watertank'' are set in Roman Palestine and told, respectively, from the points of view of a donkey and a lamb, but in place of the warm-and-fuzzy animal parables one might expect, Mathews ( Windfalls ) offers moving, often slyly hilarious meditations on the nature of life and death. ``Elephant Bread and the Last Battle'' chronicles the French vacation of a compulsive, precocious boy who has created a strange inner world based on an imperfect understanding of his elders' language. In the title story, a brief romance illuminates the life of a witty, kind and embittered woman who manages to embody and yet defy the stereotype of the spinster schoolteacher. ``Train Tracks,'' the tale of an Irish schoolboy's visit to post-WW II Germany, is perhaps the book's most accessible and conventional piece, yet it too spins a closely woven skein of words and strange, disturbing images. While this collection is certainly not light fare, the thoughtful reader will be amply rewarded by unpredictable yet believable plot twists, mesmerizing language and searching insights into the secret lives of men, women and even animals. (Sept.)