By Salt Water

In these stories of Ireland and the Irish, Bourke (winner of the 1992 Frank O'Connor Award for Short Fiction) weaves beautiful language in such a way that the silences speak as eloquently as the descriptive passages. While the tales occasionally veer off into familiar coming-of-age territory, skilled writing lifts most of the material and gives it a poignant tinge. Many of Bourke's youthful female narrators are allowing their futures to hinge on unreliable men. In ""Deep Down,"" a woman goes to the small town where she used to spend her summers and has a brief tryst with a boy who was once her babysitting charge. ""Dreams of Sailing"" details a woman's attempts to lose her virginity. The surprising ""Camouflage"" at first seems to be about the narrator's journey from Dublin to the North to present her inscrutable boyfriend to her family, but a clever twist reveals the narrowness of the narrator's vision. Irish characters who have lived in the U.S. provide interesting perspectives. In ""Ham,"" a woman is almost ashamed of her excitement over her beloved sister-in-law's return to Ireland, since she is coming back for her own mother's funeral. A series of stories about a girl named Una--she spots a favorite young nun leaving the order in ""Secret Passages""; makes a mean-spirited ""Beauty Treatment"" appointment for a hated teacher; develops a crush on her cousin in ""Charm""--are among the less inspired. As a whole, however, this is a restrained, intelligent collection with a subtle feel for the pulse of normal life. (May)