Wild, Cold State

Monroe's disappointing second fiction offering (after The Source of Trouble, which won a Flannery O'Connor Award ) dwells uncomfortably between short-story collection and novel, featuring eight first-person tales that share several characters, most notably Louisa, who works at a newspaper. The most fully realized figure in this multifaceted look at life in northern Wisconsin, Louisa narrates three of the eight stories--one as a girl, one as a college student and the third as a married adult. She's also a key figure in tales told by others. ``The Plow Got Through, Too Bad,'' narrated by her jilted lover, Peter, details Louisa's bookishness among her blue-collar peers and her on-again, off-again romance with a drug-dealing boyfriend; meanwhile, ``Plumb and Solid'' is related by Louisa's longtime acquaintance Zoe, who's married and pregnant with her fourth child but is in love with Louisa's brother. Monroe ably outlines her indecisive characters' overlapping relationships, but her monotone narrative voice barely distinguishes one speaker from another. Ultimately, there's too much exposition here, and with slack plot lines, scant payoff--excepting only ``Plumb and Solid,'' the collection's uncharacteristically optimistic and eventful closer. (Feb.)