Curtains: New and Selected Stories

The one admirable story of this collection is an affectionate and crisp account of an artist's morning. She injects her diabetic son with insulin, tests the blood sugar in his urine, sends him off to class and then paints as her other child, a baby girl, plays nearby. Sadly the rest of the stories here pale in comparison: set in Chicago, they include pieces about a poker player's death, a Catholic schoolboy's first sexual experience and a young businessman's act of shoplifting. McManus presents life as if it were art, attempting to retell certain events in staccato sentences and paragraphs. But the Kafkaesque style never delivers the important substance implied by the form. (April)