Done in by Innocent Things

Twelve stories and a novella comprise William Eisner's frank and imaginative second book, Done In by Innocent Things. In the evocative ""An Afternoon at the Movies,"" an unnamed narrator watches his mother and father's courtship in ""grainy, stark black and white,"" willing his mother not to do what he knows she has already done; in the darkly comic ""Fountain of Youth,"" a sex act with an Asian prostitute gives an aging widower miraculous vitality. A husband finds his place in his wife's memory usurped by an old flame in ""Arthur,"" and an accountant tired of dull living decides that crime just might pay in ""Heist,"" the collection's opening novella. The author of The S vign Letters places diverse characters in varying and vital moments, as secretaries and engineers, young women and senior citizens confront fate, love, sex and death in cleanly crafted stories that snap with energy. (June)