Coming Triumph

In this gathering of astonishing tales by DeMarinis, whose blackly comic view of life has already been acclaimed (the 1986 Drue Heinz Prize for Under the Wheat), there is further evidence of his power to repel as well as attract. In the title story, the narrator, an alienated, out-of-work househusband who has an epiphany in the supermarket, delivers what might be the theme of the collection when he muses on ``. . . the black world around me, yoked to a rhythm it could neither escape nor follow, reeled helplessly by.'' The oblique world is inhabited by grotesques, like the fat woman with heavy thighs nicknamed ``Swift Premium'' by her unsympathetic husband ``Whopper,'' in ``Culture Shocks.'' It is a frightening place where a mysterious dog can break into the sleep of a troubled couple every morning at three with a bark ``like a shout from God,'' as in ``The Handgun.'' Disquieting, vibrant with anger and sadness, these stories throb with a surreal, insistent heartbeat. (July)