Party Dress

English rock singer and artist Coyne's entertaining first book--a collection of short-short stories, plays and drawings--portrays people whom life has cheated out of the pretensions of normalcy. Their tales are both blackly humorous and tragic. In the title story, a young boy accepts pocket change from an old crone who, in collusion with his mother, forces him to wear the dress of her long-dead daughter. He submits, only to be taunted by his mother: ``You bloody well enjoyed it.'' Yet aberrant forms of experience give the lives of Coyne's characters a kind of warped order and purpose. In ``Wedding Night,'' a couple's nuptial eve is interrupted by the bride's ex-boyfriend, who arrives to saw her in half. The intruder dies in the ensuing scuffle and the newlyweds dismember him, an activity that bonds them: ``They were together forever in the deepest possible way. They had real secrets to keep.'' Less satisfying are ``Ironies: Incidents from an Endless Dream,'' prose pieces that, lacking narratives, seem diffuse and rambling compared with the quirky, absurdist visions of humanity that make the rest of the work so fascinating. (Apr.)