The Honeymoon: Stories

In the title story of this collection, Eunice's new husband, Nick, stays in bed and reads for the two weeks they spend in Paris on their honeymoon. A shattered Eunice eventually looks up her college roommate, Cynthia, who takes Eunice to a restaurant that has a ladies' room with a mirrored floor. There the two have passionless sex. In ""The Donkey,'' a Greek peasant marries his donkey in an official ceremony, both because the only woman he can allow into his life is his mother and because the donkey ``never talks back.'' In ``Terms,'' Beth learns that at the time she miscarried her best friend Maxine was aborting the child she had conceived with Beth's husband. These stories feature dreary male characters (if they love at all, they love two women at once) and introverted, self-conscious women whose overwhelming feelings of betrayal and sadness are merely described, not convincingly conveyed to the reader. (JulypTHE JUNKYARD DOG Robert Campbell. Signet, $2.95Jimmy Flannery is a Democratic party precinct captain in Chicago's rundown 27th ward, where a bomb blast at an abortion clinic kills a patient and an older nurse who lived in Flannery's apartment building. Looking into the matter for the ``honor of the house''or districtFlannery learns that the patient had been shot before the explosion. But quickly, evidence disappears, cops clam up, and it becomes clear that someone has ordered a coverup. However, Flannery, tenacious as a junkyard dog, follows the few meager clues, which lead to the son-in-law of one of the most powerful Mafia leaders in the city. Along the way, Flannery is beaten up, another woman (who the assailants believed was Flannery's girlfriend) ismurdered, and everyone but Flannery's father tells him to lay off the case. Written in appealing argot, this mystery has full characters, a satisfying ending and a nice balance of hardboiled action and romantic tenderness. (July)