Anatomies

In Hochman's debut collection of 14 short stories and one novella, she skillfully mimics the puckish tone with which a certain kind of woman (and adolescent girl), operating slightly off-kilter, describes the eternal tumble of America's images of dysfunction. The stories span the continent. Although Hochman stretches her imagination to encompass a janitor (""Do Not Attempt to Climb Out"") and a Mexican immigrant street performer (""Local Currency""), her best stories return to educated young women. In ""Liability,"" the novella, Linden escapes her bickering parents and yuppie sister in Baltimore for the groovy culture of Portland, Ore. There, Esto, her landlord, is a dilapidated old hippie. While Esto is going down for the count, overwhelmed by his wife's suicide and alcoholism, Linden has to come to grips with her self-preserving aloofness. In ""The Whole Truth and Nothing but the Truth,"" Hochman's persona is a 12-year-old girl who gets into a puzzling friendship with Connie, a popular, brainless girl with a bullying streak. Connie's birthday-slumber party turns into a minor disaster and terminates the narrator's desire for Connie's approval. In ""Dark Is Not a Single Shade of Gray,"" college-age Beth recalls her fleeting friendship with Miranda Logan, whose mother, Lettie, was a lush. When Miranda's father caught Lettie drinking with 11-year-old Beth, he forbade the girl to come over to the house. Now, in college, Beth hears that Lettie drove her car into a river and drowned. In the best tradition of suburban realism, these stories show the minute creep into bright lives of darker elements from the unnoticed edge. Agent, Amy Rennert. (May)