A veteran poet, Bensko has received the Yale Series of Younger Poets Award and produced three books of verse (The Iron City
; The Waterman's Children
; Green Soldiers
). He turns his attention to fiction in a debut story collection that is limpid and dreamlike at its best, but too often gloomy and detached. As the title suggests, nearly all 13 stories feature characters drawn to the ocean, whether by profession, disposition or circumstances. In "Painted Animals," a writer named Janice moves to north Florida and immediately regrets it, seeing the "line of green mold that had crept up the side of the house like the wave mark of an invisible ocean." When Eveline, her new neighbor, makes strange remarks suggesting that her sons lived and died in the house, Janice is forced to paint each room to claim it as her own. "Tequila Worms" tells the story of Prentiss, a young crewman on a tourist fishing boat. His easygoing job changes course when the boat takes on a group of strange passengers, led by a blind man with inexplicable skill at fishing. "Sirens" returns to the theme of fishing, featuring a widower named Washburn who has moved to Florida to hang a pole over the dock and forget his sorrows. He's confronted by a young woman who tells him over and over again, "I think you're wonderful," though Washburn has no idea why. After a while Bensko repeats himself, as nearly every story is built around the water and an inevitable encounter with an odd character. But the ongoing sense of mystery is also the strength of the collection, which provides no easy answers in exploring the loss and aimlessness that pervades these peoples' lives. (May)
