Articles of Faith

The winner of this year's Iowa Short Fiction Award, this collection of eight stories heralds a fine new voice. The entries reflect a wide range of strong narrative approaches and chronicle the role of silence in relationships: its ability to cement ties and the bracing shock of breaching it. In ""A Confusion of Light,"" a mother watches a televised report of her daughter Elaine's religious compound being blown apart by law enforcement agents. ""We guessed something was happening with Elaine,"" she says, stunned by the reality that her daughter is involved in a cult, ""but I didn't want to pry, to be too motherly."" In ""The Oracle,"" Philip, recently graduated from college, returns home to find his widowed mother involved with Hal, a born-again Christian. Philip is intensely drawn to Hal's 14-year-old daughter, Megan. His mother won't discuss the seriousness of her new relationship, Hal won't say how or why he became a born-again Christian, and the precocious Megan is hesitant to reveal why she was sent to live with her father. Philip finds himself sneaking around to be with Megan. The silence is momentarily broken, then resumes its hold. In other stories, a young girl grows up under the unspoken guilt of her friend's suicide; a man marries a woman who won't confront her past; and a struggling waitress glimpses a terrible world in the silences of the illegal immigrants who work alongside her in the dishroom. Oness is a highly skilled writer whose stories are freighted with unique messages and perspectives. Since her work is already familiar to readers of literary quarterlies and of the 1994 O. Henry Prizes, Oness should broaden her audience with this collection. (Oct.)