Seeing Eye

This savvy collection of short fiction is divided into three very different parts. The first, ``The War that Never Ends,'' is composed of 17 brief vignettes and character sketches. While some, such as ``Limited'' (in which a train passenger observes a thrown rock shatter a railcar window), attain an elliptical, gnomic power, most are so skeletal they become weightless. The second section, ``Pensees: The Thoughts of Dan Quayle,'' is made up of slightly longer pieces narrated by the former Veep. Amazingly, they often give a twisted dignity and poignance to vapidness, as when Quayle, seated prominently beside the Speaker of the House during a State of the Union address, tries to banish his discomfort by imagining the members of Congress naked: ``Trickles of sweat deliberately trace the topography of Teddy's sagging breasts.... Bill's thighs have been stripped of veins for his bypass. The gentleman from New Jersey has new plugs.... I see into them. My job description gives me this vision since all I do is wait on death.'' The last section of the book, ``Seeing Eye,'' is composed of six conventional-length stories that revel in the slightly peculiar. The title story takes place in a town whose main industry is training seeing-eye dogs: ``... the town is overly complicated for its size, presenting to the dogs every possible distraction.... Dummy fire hydrants. Revolving doors in the butcher shop.... An escalator leading down to a subway station with turnstiles but no trains.'' Although this is an uneven collection, Martone (Fort Wayne Is Seventh on Hitler's List) proves himself a writer of delicate sensibility whose work is notable for its delightfully quirky details and careful prose. (Sept.)