Wide Eyed

With linked anecdotes substituting for plot, Dalton's 20 quick, vibrant, wild tales read more like fantastical diary entries than short stories. Narrated by the same woman at different ages, they reveal what most fascinates her: animals and magic and death and the sensual, up-close details of both earthly and unearthly beings. In "Soft Dead Things," the narrator riffs on things fur-related ("Fur makes me sad but excited"), including her dog ("Sometimes when I wake up, I'll kiss my dog's snout, but it unnerves me to think of the trash and hairy testicles it's been rooting around in"), the hamster she accidentally killed when she was a girl ("I pet her dead wet body for a long time") and a Beverly Hills fur store that both attracts and repels her. The latest in Dennis Cooper's Little House on the Bowery series, the work is ripe with sensuality and playfulness. In the hilarious "Bienvenido el Duende," the narrator exchanges letters with a Christmas elf, while "Animal Party" is a lovely meditation on cats and loneliness. Dalton's unique blend of dream and bracingly honest observation makes this a delightfully weird and disarming read. (Oct.)