The Woman at the Window

In these 16 adeptly told tales, Australian writer Eldridge ( Walking the Dog ) lures readers to find hidden meaning in everyday events, then jocularly mocks us for doing precisely that. In ``A Love Story,'' for instance, Philip and his girlfriend Alvie, on an Italian vacation, are enchanted by a man selling a flying toy pigeon. To Philip the wonderful moment ``means more than itself''--until he learns that the man is an exploited worker. Several stories follow the relationship of these two appealing characters, from its heady beginning in ``Primavera,'' to its end in ``Capital Gains,'' in which Philip is ``that name'' that cannot be uttered in front of Alvie. Social concerns rise to the fore in ``A Sense of Place'' when a woman visiting Pretoria becomes decidedly uncomfortable with its divided society. In ``Outside the Silver Dory,'' a divorced father tries to inveigle the two sons with whom he now has little in common. The subject of the title story is a poor single mother who secretly hopes for a tragedy to relieve her of the responsibility she is ill equipped to handle. (June)