Seasonal Rain and Other Stories

The short fiction of Texan novelist Flynn (North to Yesterday is spare and incisive. He writes of peopleAmericans in rural settings or in Vietnamwhose lives are affirmed through endurance. In this anthology, the opening story, ""The Midnight Clear,'' tracks with wry, understated humor the courtship of two battered people: she, almost 37 and husbandless; he, 45, a widower and almost out of luck. ``The Great Plain'' catches the wrenching sadness of the human losses suffered by a country couple heading for the promised land of California in a wagon. In the Vietnam stories, the feelings that torment youthful, ignorant recruits after a first killing are evoked with gritty realism. Not every story is equally fine-tuned, but their voices linger, troubling, yet reassuring because, as one character says, ``Even when it ruins you, a rain does some good.'' (October 24