In That Heaven There Should Be a Place for Me: Stories of the Mohawk Valley

The high gabled houses of upstate New York's Mohawk Valley shelter characters in this superb collection of ten short stories set in the 1950s. Steely, hard and gritty as the dark streets of an upstate winter, these men and women struggle in isolation. Love and compassion are in short supply except for the final story, ``The Washing Machine,'' in which young John Sobieski agonizes over the fate of his long-dead grandparents. ``When he saw her burdened and distressed, he brought home the washing machine that would ease her life for her. When still she failed of happiness, he threw the washing machine into the lake.'' Beuchler, whose stories have been included in the O. Henry Awards, has created stories that are flawlessly constructed, spare and delicate in the telling, but whose final impact leaves the reader with a sense of restless longing and emptiness. Beuchler's characters seldom know what they want, and their sad strivings for unknown pleasures are sometimes difficult to endure. The men often disappoint--they die, they give up, they run away or become brutish. As years go by his women simply harden. Even joyous occasions like marriage and birth are denied celebration. Baer, the main character of ``The Ambulance Driver,'' comes close to creating the life we think he wants; then, in a single harsh and cruel action, he destroys it all. Beuchler's talent for creating a sense of place, even a place we might not want to visit, is profound, and his characters, not necessarily people we'd like to know, are unforgettable. (May)