Now You See It... Stories from Cokesville, PA

This debut collection weaves together generations of several smalltown Polish-American families living in Cokesville, Pa., a fictional coal-mining and steelmaking town. Annie Kusiak narrates several stories, and despite several false starts—including failures as a student, converting to Judaism and attempting suicide—she makes it out of Cokesville, only to discover its citizens still have a vise-like hold on her imagination. After 30 years, Mrs. Szilborski turns on her neighbor Mrs. Wojic and her two dogs, one of which Mrs. Wojic believes is the reincarnation of her dead husband. Bruno Gojuk, after falling into a vat of molten steel, draws the whole town to his funeral, not for the grisly spectacle of man turned to metal, but for a chance to rub shoulders with (and size up) his runaway daughter, Theresa, now a sitcom star and the wife of a black man. Monk grew up in a coal-mining family, did a stint in the army and now lives in Allentown, Pa. The interlocking structure allows her to cover 40 years and several locales with ease. The people and situations are not particularly appealing, but Monk's unsentimental, deadpan touch with her characters is winning. (June)