Dream State

``Everybody is real [sic] the same. Not some more real and some less,'' observes the narrator of the title tale of this new collection of eight stories from Crone (The Winnebago Mysteries). This book, which won the Pirate's Alley Faulkner Prize, concerns a declining movie star who returns to her Louisiana hometown to escape a scandal in Hollywood. Indeed, the strength of Crone's short fiction is the realism that the author grants to her characters and their situations: a divorced couple meeting over dinner in New Orleans to discuss their daughter's schooling, in the process reawakening tender feelings for each other (``There is a River in New Orleans''); an unemployed father of a baby girl who has an affair with a teenager while his wife is away on business (``Fever''). All the stories are set in Louisiana (Crone teaches creative writing at Louisiana State University), depicted as a culturally hybrid landscape where traditional rules collide with individual desires. The psychological aspects of most of the tales, generally voiced by forthcoming, self-reflective narrators, seem obvious. While readers may appreciate the accessibility and earnestness of the collection, they won't have to strain to figure out the kind of world Crone is creating for her characters: one marked by confusion about self, love and future. (Oct.)