Blood Lake: And Other Stories

""Close by the fabulous faux Tudor home where I live these days, there is a notorious pedagogue of literature who is known for his dictum, `Tell a dream; lose a reader.'"" So begins one characteristically bizarre, deadpan sequence in this very funny debut collection. Reading Krusoe is like listening to a great storyteller who constantly interrupts himself, remembering even better tales than the one he started telling, who springs irony after goofy irony on his readers, usually with perfect comic timing and an offhand wit that recalls, more than anyone else, Mark Leyner. A second-grader becomes an overnight morphine addict after smoking marijuana one time; a prisoner in France has a jail diet that consists of freshly baked baguettes and designer mineral water; a conscientious objector accidentally sets 20 fellow protesters on fire while burning his draft card. And yet a heart beats beneath Krusoe's madcap: his stories capture the absurdities and cliches of everyday lives with notable manic aplomb. (Oct.)