Jump Rope Queen

The finest work in this debut collection are the stories that follow a character named Rachel from girlhood to adulthood in Chicago and later Florida. Unfortunately, because the stories are organized by location, not all the ones about Rachel are grouped together, which can be jarring. Her escapades with a snobby friend named Cynthia, the time she sneaks out at six in the morning to wish an elderly neighbor happy birthday, and in particular her experiences after befriending an overweight, promiscuous girl in high school all provide fertile ground for Loeb's incisive writing. Other stories depict Rachel in Florida, caring for her aging mother, whose health is rapidly deteriorating, and these too have a quiet force. Most of the other work has a flip quality to it, as though Loeb were writing about demographic groups rather than specific characters. Although these stories set up amusing situations--a woman stays with the friend of a friend in New York and finds that he lives in a filthy apartment and practices ``back-to-the-womb therapy'' in his bathtub; a man becomes obsessed with collecting Hawaiian shirts--they seem all surface and no substance in comparison to the more moving ``Rachel'' pieces around them. (Apr.)