THE NUN AND THE ANARCHIST

The plight of those who have suffered civil and human rights violations in Central America is given a passionate but rather monotonous treatment in this debut short story collection. Smith, an archeologist and self-described anarchist who works at a refugee sanctuary in Berkeley, compiled these stories from a series of interviews with residents who suffered a variety of abuses, and he's done very little embellishing in translating them to the printed page. Many of the characters and story lines seem almost interchangeable, with most involving a protagonist from a village who is in some way victimized by political oppression and tries to fight back in tragic circumstances against overwhelming odds. Picking the best of the bunch is a bit of a crapshoot, but a strong contender is "A Firm Hand," a narrative about an assassin assigned to kill a childhood friend. Several stories feature female protagonists, most notably "I Accuse," in which a mother finds the strength to take on a military terrorist regime after her son and the son of her lover are kidnapped. The stories offer a variety of intriguing plots, but Smith does very little in the way of character development, and he rarely supplies much beyond the surface context of the narrative in such war-torn locales as Honduras and Guatemala. It's hard not to sympathize with the plight of the protagonists, and this collection provides an illuminating look at life in countries where basic freedoms can never be taken for granted. But as a literary work, the book is a one-note samba of sad but too similar tales that fails to do justice to the plight of its subjects. (Oct. 15)