A Gravestone Made of Wheat: Stories

In these 12 stories, the author of the impressive Red Earth, White Earth returns to the enduring theme of farmland, small towns and family life. Perhaps most delicately executed is the title narrative, an elegiac tribute to the heartland of America, couched in the framework of a poignant burial on the family farm. ``Heart of the Fields'' also concerns a family, generations of Hansens on a memorable deer hunt. Humor bubbles in ``The Bread-Truck Driver'' as we follow the antics of an Elvis-type trucker who proffers his sexual favors to discontented wives along his delivery route. ``Dispersal'' echoes a contemporary tragedy, the auction of a foreclosed farm, while ``You Are What You Drive'' follows an ingeniously developed theme, the role of the automobile in widely divergent lives. Weaver captures the flow of family cycles and lifestyles in a very American landscape. (Feb.)