Beyond This Bitter Air

Among the 10 stories in this collection are two that have received Pushcart Prize nominations. Rossiter explores the thickets of family relationships and the misperceptions that can blight relationships in two rather straightforward tales: ""Combinations,'' in which an adolescent's rejection of his mother's love is expressed with fury; and ``The Tea Party,'' where two womenone the TV-addicted wife of a Welsh farmer, the other a romanticizing spouse of an American professorenviously misperceive each other. ``Star Light, Star Bright'' gently echoes the nostalgia of a young woman visiting her senile grandmother, aptly named Honey; ``Pandora'' interposes a Samoyed puppy on a troubled marriage; and in the concluding story, ``Civil War,'' a sophisticated photographer employs as a companion for her aged father a hearty young woman with what may be a colorful past. These short narratives are sensitive capturings of mysterious divagations in ordinary people's lives. (September 18)