Keepsakes & Other Stories

These seven gentle tales set in Minnesota and North Dakota and all written during the 1970s treat fans of novelist Hassler (A Green Journey; Jemmy) to the earliest fruits of his talent. Some are folksy portraits of small-town characters, while others are drier and more plot driven. Both the title story and ""Resident Priest"" feature crusty, 74-year-old Father Fogarty, a pastor who's leaving his parish after 23 years. In ""Chief Larson,"" a seven-year-old Indian boy, known (rather improbably) only as ""chief"" on the reservation, rebels in a small but telling way against his white adoptive family. ""Good News in Culver Bend"" tracks two city reporters who travel to a small town and discover ""the heart of Christmas."" ""Chase"" and ""Christopher, Moony, and the Birds"" show how frustrated residents of small towns seek solace. The former, so brief it's nearly a prose poem, hints at Hassler's own adolescent discovery of his talent for fiction; the latter follows a lonely 50-year-old college professor as he goes on a consolatory walk with a student's awkward wife and child, watching ""birds on family outings, hopping and halting on the grass."" The cleverest story, ""Yesterday's Garbage,"" follows a ""garbologist"" who finds the truth about a murder in a trash bin, and is then led to commit one himself. The publisher plans to issue Hassler's later short fiction in three more volumes, starting in the year 2000. (Sept.)