In the Time of the Girls

Germanacos's debut is made up of brief fictional moments that straddle the line between prose and poetry and culminate in a vigorous but altogether elusive narrative. The stories constructed from these moments (some less than 10 words long) reflect on family, parenting, teaching, marriage, sexuality, and modern dilemmas, all loosely framed in the ancient context of Greek history and mythology. Character names often come from myths, and detached prose compels the reader to imagine the connections that string these people together. Germanacos's Odysseus plays backgammon with an Iranian rug seller while on vacation; Themistocles drives a dirty VW bug with a peahen riding shotgun. The beauty of this unconventional collection is in its details: each moment offers a glimpse at a larger story while giving the reader intimate, wry, and acute details about the narrator or her surrounding characters. This makes for a light and lively reading experience as each moment spins into the next without reaching a cohesive whole; Germanacos's vision doesn't extend quite that far. (Oct.)