Hotel Lambosa

This short fiction debut by New York School poet Koch ( Seasons on Earth ) is uniformly unmemorable. Rarely more than three pages in length each, these pieces are closer to travelogue than fiction, and they quickly become repetitive. The characters are sometimes named but more often referred to as ``the wife,'' ``the friend,'' or ``the child'' (a daughter whose age changes from story to story). With nothing more than a surface irony, simplistic questions about sex are raised. There are marriages, affairs, divorces, men sleeping with their former wives: ``There is nothing like being in the middle of a seduction in a strange country in an unfamiliar hotel,'' the speaker says in the one-pager from which the collection takes its title. The ``strange country'' might be Italy, Greece, Paris, China, Spain, or virtually anywhere else; cities and countries are mentioned ad nauseum. Since the narrators are so self-centered, details of the changing environment aren't noticed, except when there is some famous artwork that can be thrown in as a conversation piece. There are dreams and dream-like imagery, but the whole lacks surrealism's depth. In the final analysis, it's hard to identify with, or care about, any of the characters Koch creates. This book launches a new series called Coffee to Go: Short-Short Stories for People on the Run! (May)