Married Life and Other True Adventures: Stories

In 10 astute, mildly zany and often wickedly funny stories, Kirshenbaum ( Short Subjects ) peers at a multifaceted assortment of modern relationships. A wife who decides to organize her life by making lists of ``Things to Do'' discovers she married not for love, but for a good health plan. If you are a woman with a past, there is no point to an attachment with a man who thinks only of the future, according to ``Past Perfect.'' Reality may encompass a gray Honda Civic in suburban Connecticut, but to the narrator of ``Wheels,'' true love is a sleek, cobalt-blue Alfa Romeo on the open road. ``Pravda'' describes two women, friends of many years, who spend a g fall afternoon outdoors on a bench discussing Marxism, men and amorality. An American couple who haveg come to Romania in search of romance to save their marriage find only ``Travail''; the highlight of their vacation is the sight of three stuffed goats in pink tutus. Perhaps all these disenchanted characters would agree with the heroine of ``Red Fever,'' who claims that love is like another troublesome substance: ``You scrape and scrape at the bottom of your shoe but you never quite get it off.'' Some pieces appeared previously in the New England Review/Bread Loaf Quarterly and other publications. (May)