Twilight of the Idiots

In most of these 11 bluntly told stories, the prospect of imminent death compels the characters to confront their mortality in ways ranging from the desperate to the tragically inevitable. In "Rita's Last Crazy Idea," a drunken tryst in the waters of Lake Michigan turns acrimonious and violent when the lovers are caught in the undertow of a nearby pumping station. In "Godvoice," a rookie cop is dispatched to the same street corner where his captain once suffered terrible injuries during a drug deal shootout, and the rookie is forced to contemplate his own mortality. In "Golfer's Bog," a golf caddy who is murdered by a trio of criminal country club patrons posthumously narrates the desecrations they inflict on his corpse before sinking it in a golf course water hazard. These tales are sparse in their details, but Peterson (Gideon's Confession) shows skill at revealing his characters' states of mind through their reactions to their situations. In "Rawfish," a teenage boy takes a thankless after-school job to impress a girl; in "The Visit," a man discovers that his girlfriend may have more in common with his estranged mother than with him. Though not all of these stories support one character's belief that "he was just an animal, and that this world, humanity itself, was a perverse evil," most are appealing in their depiction of characters trying to survive in a world that's out of their control. (May)