A Blind Corner

Macy (Mrs.) returns with a discomfiting collection featuring characters who take risks and face disappointments. In “Nude House,” timid Massachusetts teenager Susanna Gutteridge starts up a sexual relationship with a boy who subsequently becomes institutionalized and is assumed by the townspeople to have schizophrenia. In “Residents Only,” a woman named Alex brings her daughters to a friend’s beach house in Acapulco, only to discover the host can’t make it. What follows is a complicated situation involving access to the pool and interactions with a cleaner, culminating in a devastating accident. In the title story, married American couple Tim and Alison travel to Italy, where Tim must leave halfway through. Alone, Alison drives drunkenly, does a terrible thing, and blames it on the owner of the house where she’s staying: “You’ve ruined this country for me, Luigi!” Often, characters display a propensity for self-righteousness, as with a mother in “We Don’t Believe in That Crap” who rails against junk food and television. Throughout, Macy impresses with strange internal monologues. Here’s Alex again: “That truculent type of fear gripped me, such as you feel when a plane is boarding, and for now, you have the adjoining seat to yourself.” Macy succeeds at dragging the reader, along with her characters, out of their comfort zone. Agent: Brettne Bloom, Book Group. (June)