Is That You, John Wayne?

It's the biggest questions that don't really matter, lending value to an interior made of wallflowers in Garson's debut collection of short (and shorter) stories. Characters chase down stolen plastic Santas, stalk their professors, and invite celebrities to anonymously build the talent of their small town elementary school choirs. Stories begin and end on the sides of circumstance, calling themselves complete where most narratives start building steam. One ends right when a love relationship is about to heat up between the two main characters, another when a student reveals to a professor that he snuck into his house and caught him mid-fellatio with a fellow student. Here, neither plot nor reaction act as vehicles; rather, the writing moves with a stop-and-go poeticism, almost lyrical as it shifts between idea and action. "He is animated by chance. Of major sponsorship. Ascension. The picture is inexact, but he feels it. Open rise." Dialogue is simultaneously hilarious and horrifying, subtly revealing more about the nature of character relationships than the prose. Garson has led unwitting watchers into a spotlight, pulling all the in-between moments out of the comforts of their corners and giving them a literary dance far greater than they would have given themselves. (Apr.)