These Things Happen: Stories

Unpredictability and the strangeness of ordinary people are the constant themes in this second collection of short stories. Thurm ( Floating , Walking Distance ) has a precise ear for the language of odd moments. ``Leaving Johanna'' is a story about a couple whose marriage has stalled for Charles, the husband, who fabricates an affair as an excuse to move out. In ``Away from the Heart,'' a young single mother opens her door to two teenaged girls called Ice and Metro who have helped her carry the baby's stroller upstairs. She later discovers that they have robbed her of her jewelry. In each of these 10 stories, Thurm negotiates the darker corners of normal life. Her imaginative scenarios``Sanctuary,'' for instance, takes place at a bar mitzvah, and focuses on an encounter between the father's ex-wife and his current homosexual loverare matched by the liquid clarity of her prose. (October)