Winter's Tales

Neurosis, obsession and self-destructiveness drive many of the dozen stories in this strong annual roundup. In Muriel Spark's sinister ``Open to the Public,'' a spinster incestuously devoted to her deceased novelist-father collects a series of young lovers who help exalt his memory. In Paul Sayer's scary ``Othello's Shadow,'' a man's envy of women triggers round-the-clock spying on his wife. Culture shock pervades the two longest tales: Laura Kalpakian (``Lavee, Lagair, Lamore, Lamaird'') transforms a comical Mormon family saga into tragedy as her heroine witnesses WW I's horrors; Georgina Hammick (``The American Dream'') explores class consciousness among four preteens--one French, one American, and English brother-sister twins. Death is omnipresent: in Graham Greene's masterful ``The Moment of Truth,'' a cancer-ridden waiter conceals his condition like a criminal secret, while Damon Galgut (``Cloete's Revenge'') limns a South African corporal who forces an underling to murder a wounded black prisoner. Contributors to a feast of talent, new and old, include Jorge Luis Borges, David Updike and A. L. Barker. (Feb.)