Party Chicks and Other Works: Stories of Life in Modern America

This is a collection of four offensive tales peopled by unlikable, one-dimensional characters. The title novella begins promisingly, but degenerates into an odd sort of morality play in which a lonely, AIDS-related death is visited upon the heroine as an apparently just retribution for her sexual profligacy. Next is ``Black,'' replete with the ugliest racial stereotypes this side of Stepin Fetchit, in which--once again--the major character pays dearly for his sexual trespass. In this instance, however, the sin is not merely fornication but miscegenation. And the hero's death is far from lonely; he is incinerated along with the rest of the planet as an absurd plot line reveals, without g irony or satire, how interracial sex can lead to nuclear annihilation. In ``Divorced,'' the protagonist's life is ruined by his mother's divorce and subsequent sexual liaisons. He turns to drug running, only to have his head blown off by a rival. Finally, we have ``Fired!,'' a story in verse, about a middle-aged man dismissed from his job who, after much travail, sells his family to the devil. McKelvy wrote My California Friends and Other Stories. (Sept.)