Coast of Chicago: Stories

Stuart Dybek. Vintage Books USA, $10 (173pp) ISBN 978-0-679-73334-8

These 14 dreamlike stories include ``Nighthawks,'' a man's surreal subway journey inspired by a vision of his dead girlfriend, and ``Blight,'' the tale of a recurring nightmare, in which atomic bombs drop on Chicago when the White Sox win the pennant. Dybek's ``phantasmagoric'' collection ``evokes the bizarre mysteries of everyday life in Chicago's gritty ethnic enclaves,'' PW said. Author tour. (Mar.)

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