Sideshows

In this promising first collection, the author offers a dozen stories about madness and death written with a light touch, a sense of humor and little trace of the maudlin--no mean feat. Smith has an uncanny ability to feel the world from inside her characters' skins. Using specific, evocative imagery, the best of these stories give the reader an intimate view of the beleaguered characters' mental states, which well-meaning spouses, lovers, family members and friends fail to understand. ``Full Circle'' recounts how a young woman's cyclical depression follows the phases of the moon and leads her to play sadistic pranks on her loved ones. Every sensation, irritation, memory and dread Tess feels is carefully detailed until her very peculiar experiences are equally familiar--and frightening--to readers. Yet some of the childish pranks--including the most daring one that may cost her her job--provide comic relief. In the very affecting ``John Smith,'' a young man struggling to understand his father's suicide and his own self-destructive impulses, watches a rerun of Bonanza that triggers a childhood memory of watching the show snuggled safely in his father's arms. Smith fares less well when relying mainly on dialogue, particularly in the story of the Latino pitching phenomenon whose world seems both alien and uncomfortable to this Alabama author. If the writing suffers occasionally from the straight use of such jargon as ``dysfunctional family'' and ``codependent,'' there are many signs of considerable artistic growth in this volume, and great promise for the future. (June)