The Big Dream: Stories

In her spry, satirical new collection, Rosenblum (Once) presents 13 dialogue-rich and highly readable vignettes featuring a colorful cast of characters who work for Dream Inc., a foundering Canada-based lifestyle-magazine publisher. There's the Vice President of Human Resources, forced to lay off customer-service reps while her mother lays dying in a local hospital; the college student on the verge of a nervous breakdown who works in the cafeteria; the corporate-branding specialist experimenting with lesbianism; and the retired exec who can't quite let go of the dream. None of her main characters are editors; they come from other areas of the publishing industry, and they struggle with such mundane decisions as where to eat lunch and what to do after work. Rosenblum makes these challenges read like monumental events in her characters' lives (which they no doubt are), and deserves admiration for her well-chosen details and nuanced protagonists. (Sept.)