The Luxury of Tears: Winning Stories from the National Society of Arts and Letters Competition

Many of these 12 stories, winners of a literary competition sponsored by the National Society of Arts and Letters, deal with the theme of intergenerational compromise and conflict. In ``Not If, When'' by Carol Vivian Spaulding, a rueful young woman describes the physical ruin of her mother and ponders an escape from a life of onerous caretaking. In ``World War II Pictures'' by Tina Marie Conway, a young divorcee recalls the romance in her parents' lives as she views a well-worn snapshot of her mother as a seductive teenager slipping provocatively out of the shower. (The mother is now barely recognizable after the ravages of cancer.) Precocious children observe the dissolution of their parents' marriages in the harshly realistic ``Midway,'' by Young William Smith, and the gently compelling ``Light in My Pocket,'' by Marty Leslie Levine. Lyrical, gritty or wry, many stories also offer sharp portraits of people in transition. (Oct.)