cover image Stiller's Pond: New Fiction from the Upper Midwest

Stiller's Pond: New Fiction from the Upper Midwest

. New Rivers Press, $18.95 (500pp) ISBN 978-0-89823-106-9

Although this nearly 400-page multifaceted anthology of 46 stories, some previously published, from Upper Midwestern writers could be pruned of several weak offerings, many superlative pieces will not fail to startle readers with artistic narrative style and keen insights into the complexities of human relationships. A lawyer wrestles with the vicious forces of a Midwestern winter in Lon Otto's ``The Bert and Ernie Show'' and the protagonist sublimates her aching maternal feelings by working the soil in John Mihelic's ``Green Life.'' Alternately, Conrad Balfour sets ``To the Torturer'' in a grim South African prison, a woman outwits a trickster in E. Arnason's mythical ``The Ivory Comb'' and a lover's quarrel is settled in Auschwitz in ``Tomorrow You'll Forget'' by Marianne Luban. Davida Kilgore evinces the endemic poverty of a black community in ``Bingo'' and Stephen Rosen limns a white man's colossal insensitivity to Native Americans in ``The Deerhide.'' ``Rufus at the Door'' by Jon Hassler depicts a boy's perception of a retarded adult, and a retarded man becomes aware of his sexuality in Jeffrey A. Johnson's ``At D'Ambrosia's.'' Agee, who contributed the title story, and Blakely are co-editors of Border Crossings and Welch is a Pushcart Prize-winner. (July)