cover image Woman Who Cut Off Her Leg...

Woman Who Cut Off Her Leg...

Julia Slavin. Henry Holt & Company, $22 (194pp) ISBN 978-0-8050-6085-0

In this debut collection of 12 short stories with surrealistic twists, Slavin's imagination and sense of humor combine like a funhouse mirror: reality is still visible, but utterly changed. In one crazy minute the narrator of ""Swallowed Whole,"" a woman who is on fertility drugs, goes from obsessing about the teenager who cuts her lawn to swallowing him in the throes of an insatiable kiss, in essence carrying him as one would a fetus. In other examples of life run amok, objects like a childhood security blanket (""Covered"") take on a menacing life of their own, while seemingly normal people are inexplicably visited with science fictional afflictions, such as the woman who grows teeth all over her body (""Dentaphilia""). Even in these bizarre situations, Slavin touches the heart, but she verges on pathos in the more conventional stories, such as ""Rare Is a Cold Red Center,"" in which she expertly evokes a group of young employees at a restaurant through the voice of the vulnerable teenage cook trying to make good on his attempts to detox. Other fine tales describe domestic discord (""Pudding"") and fanatic careerism (""He Came Apart""). In the standout title story, Slavin wickedly satirizes the desiccated members of a snooty club in the Hamptons who find sexual satisfaction only with the despised parvenus (named Loeb and Donatucci and Moskowitz) who have brought new money into the community. Slavin's penchant for the grotesque is initially startling, but her gruesomely funny view of modern life can be memorable. (July)