RETRIBUTION

The dark side of living in a fractured family is explored in a variety of malevolent and sometimes entertaining ways in this debut story collection. Fulton introduces his peculiar family motif in the first story, "Braces," which deals with the plight of a young boy who becomes a pawn in his parents' bitter divorce when his father tries to get him to reveal the location of the vintage Mustang that his mother has hidden away to sell and pay for the boy's dental work. That entry hits the literary bull's-eye, but much of what follows is fragmented, underdeveloped and gratuitously strange. There are several contestants, but the award for most bizarre story is copped by "The Troubled Dog," about a woman driving with her two sons through the Utah desert. She rams another car, and kidnaps and robs the injured driver because he looks like her ex-husband. "Clean Away," depicting a harrowing evening in the life of a man who looks like Barry Manilow, runs a close second; the sensibility of both stories lies somewhere between Denis Johnson and David Lynch. The quality of the writing matches the inventiveness of the plotting in the title piece, in which a teenage girl uses her position as a photographer for the high school yearbook to take macabre photos of wounded cheerleaders and a driving instructor whose wife has just left him. Here Fulton demonstrates noteworthy talent, despite a lack of consistency that weakens the collection as a whole. Yet this is a good introduction to this convention-busting new writer whose first novel is due next year. (July)

Forecast:A blurb from Charles Baxter and a regional author tour will enhance visibility and help pave the way for Fulton's upcoming first novel.