20 Under 30: Best Stories by America's New Young Writers

In the introduction, Spark notes that it is problematic to find that so many of the young writers included here have been associated with university-sponsored or other writing programs. She understates the extent of the drawback, thoughmany of these stories, alternating between dubious innovation and dull earnestness, seem to have been written to fulfill an instructor's bland maxim, e.g. ""make it new'' or ``keep it true.'' Among the few standouts are one of David Leavitt's popular if glib stories from Family Dancing, Dean Albarelli's judicious tale of a young Irish terrorist reconsidering his political commitments and Michelle Herman's fine ``Auslander,'' about a translator's divided loyalty between the work and the writera story that recalls Cynthia Ozick. (April)