His 3: Brilliant New Fiction by Gay Writers

Amid the current crowd of gay-themed anthologies, this uneven but worthwhile set of 20 stories (third in an annual series) largely fails to deliver the ""brilliance"" it promises, but offers some interesting and provocative fiction. Two standouts, Robert Ordona's ""World Without End"" and David A. Newman's ""Good News and Bad News,"" look at how new treatments for HIV infection are forcing gay men and their loved ones to recreate lives they'd thought were ending. Drake (The Gay Canon; The Man) and Wolverton (Bailey's Beads) also offer some competent tales that promise more from their authors. ""Dann,"" Michael Anthony Gold's youthful, boozy narrator, poignantly relates his crush on a straight male friend. Reginald Harris's ""Haram"" imagines the life of Samir, an immigrant from the Arab world, whose exposure to contemporary gay urban culture allows him to articulate, and then to reject, his nascent same-sex desires. There's exceptional humor in ""Home Improvement,"" Scott A. Berg's tale of a Skokie housewife's sudden friendship with a TV show host and his lover. Heart-wrenching pathos emerges from Declan Meade's brief ""Lost Time,"" a snapshot of a man who dedicates his life to caring for his incapacitated grandmother. In between are several all-too-typical coming-out/coming-of-age tales. And celebrated poet Reginald Shepherd's effort disappoints; his story about a campus love affair reads like notes for a personal essay. (July)