Small Caucasian Woman: Stories

Flashes of homespun insight distinguish this collection of stories about a small eastern Kentucky town. Blanche Callicoat Long, local librarian and archivist, introduces the 17 loosely related pieces as part of her mission to preserve the personal testimonies of her neighbors in Blue Valley. Blanche touts gossip as the town's oral tradition and presents a shoe repairman named Toy Lewis as Blue Valley's master gossip and unofficial historian. Unfortunately, Toy himself doesn't narrate any of the tales, and Blanche, who relates four of them, doesn't knit the diverse voices into a whole. Palencia (author of several romance novels under the name Laurel Blake) includes several fully realized stories, such as ``The Man I Love,'' in which Blanche's cousin Susan tells how she reached the weight of 450 pounds, and the harrowing ``Stealing Sugar,'' a chronicle of a young girl's introduction to the dangerous and deceptive adult world. Although the collection is uneven, the best of these stories are distinguished by unpredictable wisdom and memorable characters. (May)