James Mason and the Walk-In Closet

The narrators of these 13 tales of survival all display a sly and ironic detachment as they reveal insights into the riddles of midlife crises. Mary Ben, who relates the title story, begins by describing the emotional and physical decline of her friend Lucy, who killed her mother and then died of heart failure while she slept in a prison cell. Mary Ben rents James Mason movies to watch on the VCR while her friend is in jail, but they don't help: ``He's gone too. What was I looking for?'' As in the collection's other tales, there is no climactic epiphany for the heroine. Seese ( Is This What Other Women Feel Too? ) maintains an unsentimental tone that allows her characters--women whose husbands have left them or died, women who have never married, contenting themselves with lovers--to recall incidents in their lives without falling into melodrama; they seem to know that a good part of life consists of just coping with it. The stories might have been simple variations on a theme, but they are distinguished by the strong voices and outlooks of their narrators. Seese also uses detail to good effect, never overloading a text but always inserting something that is at once unforgettable and contributory, if not to the plot then to the masterful tone. (Feb.)