Who I Was Supposed to Be: Short Stories

Beset by the infelicities of modern-day dysfunctionalism, the characters in these 11 unfaltering stories imagine radical, often desperate, but never easy answers for the questions wracking their ordinary, anxious lives. Perabo leavens the pervasive dysphoria of these tales with humor and an abiding faith in human resilience, relieving the tragic with the whimsical and regarding the hopeless with a shrug. The first story, ""Thick as Thieves,"" centers around an accomplished, declining film star in a flashy but soulless Hollywood milieu, who copes with his 80-year-old father--practically a stranger--who's intent on burglarizing the posh neighbors. A bungled heist sends the father home a diminished kleptomaniac, but not before his son concedes the allure of the performance. Other selections explore the heartbreaking, even seductive escape of financial fantasies: a widow who spends $900 a week on lottery tickets; a nearly insolvent couple who blow their modest inheritance on a dress once belonging to Princess Diana. In other stories, losers and winners keep changing places. One man, recently divorced after nearly 30 years of marriage, is mugged on Christmas Eve and feigns amnesia to win back his ex-wife; a junior high boy watches his father get savagely beaten by four men; two pubescent best friends kill a school bully and end up losing each other. Perabo deftly narrates from the perspectives of different genders and ages, and she speaks with intimacy, authenticity and authority whether telling the tale of a woman whose baby has just died, relaying the awkward conversation in a small-town Gamblers Anonymous meeting or presenting parents and children, grown or growing, in all their complicated humanity. Her limber, multivalenced voice heartily sustains this debut collection suffused with vivid, sharp dialogue and solid, satisfying characters. Agent, Elyse Cheney. (Aug.)