The Best of Yankee Magazine: 50 Years of New England

Navas, fiction editor of Yankee, compiled this anthology of 29 short stories previously published in that magazine. Although most of them are set in rural New England, their content is universal because each one confronts ""our common mortality'' with directness and integrity. Several stories depict disquieting, revelatory incidents which rearrange people's lives. In ``Conversation with a Pole'' by Peter Meinke, a salesman loses his job after antagonizing a Polish business contact who forces him to subconsciously acknowledge his excessive drinking. Marcia Yudkin's ``Doors Made to Order'' describes the rejuvenation of a disabled woman when she hears some intriguingly dissonant, inscrutable contemporary music. Equally effective is ``Avoiding the Shoals of Passion'' by Daniel Asa Rose, in which a young woman instantly breaks her engagement when her fiance's father unwittingly makes an offensive remark. The solemn tone and unembellished style of these stories heighten their considerable emotional impact. February 3