Lovers: Stories by Women

In this solid collection, Sumrall ( Women of the 14th Moon ) gathers 67 stories and poems, many of which have never been anthologized, to explore the ups and downs--mostly the downs--of relationships, from brief encounters to long-term entanglements. Although most are heterosexual, the few happy relationships tend to be lesbian, as in Karen X. Tulchinsky's sweet, politically correct tale about a Jewish mother who learns from her daughter that lesbianism is just ``a different kind of love.'' More typical are Marly Swick's story of a woman so devastated by the death of her married lover that she reveals the affair to his equally traumatized widow, and Marilyn Krysl's account of a woman who turns self-effacement into an art form, manipulating the men in her life by relentlessly accommodating them. In this context, one feels like Pandora peering into the very bottom of the box when reading the gentle poem by Kimiko Hahn, which compares second marriage to a dried, spent daylily blossoming a second time when it is used as an ingredient in a Chinese soup. Margaret Atwood and Isabel Allende are among the contributors to this volume. (Sept.)