In Transit: Twenty Stories

Twenty stories that first appeared in the New Yorker' s golden era of the 1950s and '60s are gathered for the first time in this brilliant collection. Gallant ( Home Truths ; Paris Notebooks ) is one of the great short story writers of our time, and these three groups of stories--``Parents and Children,'' ``Youth, Pursuit and Various Entanglements'' and ``Relatives, Friends and Adult Confusion''--represent the extraordinary diversity of her endlessly revealing fictions. Her details are always entertaining. ``I liked it when we first came over to France and lived right in Versailles,'' reminisces one of her odd characters in ``Malcolm and Bea.'' ``It was more like home.'' But while the odd remark or the telling observation polishes the surfaces of these stories, it is the author's unique summoning of those truth-telling moments at the intersections of life that charge them with significance. Gallant is a quietly dazzling writer, and it is tempting to pronounce this volume perfect. (Apr.)