25 and Under: Fiction

As editors of DoubleTake, one of the nation's most intelligent and consistently interesting literary magazines, Ketchin and Giordano made a point of publishing stories by young anonymous writers. Placed in this context, beside their peers rather than with the works of their well-seasoned elders, these 15 stories by writers actually between the ages of 23 and 28 exhibit what critics often find difficult about stories that arise out of workshop settings. While some of them (""Borges Rides the Cyclone,"" ""Naming the Baby"") hinge upon interesting scenarios, their execution proves more than a little workmanlike. Clumsy flashbacks and pedestrian prose hinder story after story, as if these young writers simply chose to ignore the most basic mechanics of quality writing. The prevalence of first-person and present-tense narratives points to another issue: young authors really do have few life experiences on which they can seriously reflect, leaving them to milk their indulgences. Aaron Cohen's ""This Is Not a Joke Like Vietnam,"" reads like a Thom Jones rough draft; Jones, it turns out, was one of Cohen's writing instructors. DoubleTake editor-in-chief Robert Coles spends the majority of his introduction praising the wisdom exhibited in the works of these 15 young writers. Such wisdom might also be construed as precociousness, which flickers out as often as it blossoms. (May)