Now It Seems That I’m Not Here at All

The latest surreal and insightful collection from Burns (The Veneration of Monsters) juxtaposes fantastical conceits and small-town settings. After Tasha in “Cakewalk” moves with her husband for his job, she paces their new house “like a ghost invited to a very chic, but very lonely, purgatory.” Her foreboding is validated after she learns she must bake a massive cake for the town’s annual cakewalk competition, which determines entrance into the community’s elite. “Four Views” portrays a woman turned into a mermaid who entertains herself by luring men to her watery rescue (“even a sea creature knows every man needs to pretend to rescue every woman”). In “Kitty Party,” Junie struggles to fit in with other women. When she turns 40, she becomes physically invisible to others and takes to hanging up missing person posters for herself around town. The story continues in its pleasingly off-kilter direction through a series of Junie’s reinventions, as her identity bleeds into that of a waitress at a restaurant in another town. Burns’s witty and incisive social commentary lands as forcefully as her surprising plot turns. This keeps readers on their toes. (Dec.)