The Revenge of Underwater Man

Covering much ground in few pages, Cervenka's globe-trotting collection of 14 stories, winner of the 1999 Richard Sullivan Prize in Short Fiction, leaps from New Guinea to Alaska to Africa. Some of the characters are travelers searching for adventure; others are exiles, returning with curiosity and caution to their former homes. ""What I Will Do!"" is one of these stories of exile; it tells of a husband and wife, Marcus and Pepa, originally from Prague. While they are on a brief honeymoon in 1968, their country is occupied by the Soviets. They start over in Switzerland, in a community of Czech emigres, but even their return to a liberated Prague can't alleviate their sense of displacement. Olaf, the protagonist of ""And Then There Were None,"" is an expatriate settled into a comfortable routine in rural Kenya, with visits to the local backpackers' bar and quiet evenings on his porch. When he takes in a fellow expatriate, Derek, as a boarder, he is at first happy for the company. But uncommunicative Derek proves ""a strange bird,"" and the successive deaths of his pet monkeys leaves him unhinged. ""The Demise of Decathlon Man"" follows a man of inherited wealth across several continents as he searches for exciting experiences and pleasant companionship. He ultimately determines that he is a ""specialist in two subspecialties: the sporting life and living in many houses."" In ""The Killing of He-Who-Is-Without-Shadow,"" a tale of an Inuit polar bear hunt, Cervenka (Mal D'Afrique) tries for the elevated, mythical quality of a folk tale, with mixed results. The stories here are admirable in breadth but limited in depth; the backdrops of various continents become more fully realized than the emotional lives of the characters themselves. (Feb.)