Likely Stories: A Postmodern Sampler

In the coy foreword and afterword that sandwich these works, Bowering ( Caprice ) and Hutcheon ( The Politics of Postmodernism ) decline to define ``postmodern.'' Judging from the contents of this volume, however, we may conclude that it designates writing with heavy-handed and self-conscious gimmickry. Almost all of these narratives by Canadian writers are interrupted by authors' voices, explaining their choices of characters' names or describing their intended audience. Other affectations include the unusual spatial arrangement of words on the page; a preponderance of psychiatrists as protagonists and of psychoanalytic jargon; and a disdain for the middle class. There are, however, also several delightful stories, which succeed through solid plotting and detail. Among these is Mildred Tremblay's tale of a housewife who begins losing her mind during spring cleaning; she takes up jogging as a cure after reading that it both improves people's health and sometimes causes orgasms. And a story by Susan Swan relates the ups and downs of a woman who becomes enamored of the male love doll she has created for a friend, a doll that is perfectly lifelike in every way, except that it has been programmed to care deeply about everyone it encounters. (Nov.)