Living Arrangements: Stories

Veering from cloying melancholy to thrilling suspense, Walter's debut collection (winner of the 2010 G. S. Sharat Chandra Prize for Short Fiction) focuses on the significance of memory and place, the challenges of being an independent woman in the modern world, and struggles with death and grief. Such themes form the bulwark of stories such as "To Elizabeth Bishop, with Love," "The Second Rule of Yoga," and the title story, in which women come to terms with a cruel world and their ambivalent connections to the past. Unfortunately, the characters prove predictable%E2%80%94lonely, afflicted heroines with absent fathers who strive for independence from decreed social roles. When Walter reaches beyond this territory (painfully familiar to any reader of Lorrie Moore), the result is the dazzling, disturbing "The Ballad Solemn of Lady Malena," in which a seductive stalker tempts a young figure skating champion to turn against her stifling environment. In the surprising gem "Live Model," an unattractive woman poses in the window of a lingerie shop and becomes momentarily famous by capturing the gaze of the world. Despite the prevailing MFA workshop ethos, the collection offers well-crafted, keen entertainment, and some genuinely affecting tales. (Nov.)