Killing Mister Watson

Numerous acquaintances of the leg endary Edgar J. Watson, said to have gunned down the outlaw Belle Starr, are given voice in a fictionalized oral history set in the Florida Everglades. PW called this ``an imaginative and haunting evocation of a time and place, and the paradox of the tenderness and brutality with which real and imagined lives are filled.'' Ten tales about people trapped in futile behavior patterns comprise On the River Styx: ``In limpid, lyrical prose, these dazzling stories ob jectively explore the lack of communi cation between husbands and wives, between races and cultures.'' (Aug.)