Primary Colors

These oblique, finely crafted stories probe the elusive underpinnings of reality. People find fulfillment in their awe of the beautiful, such as Anna's experience of ecstasy while absorbed in a painting of blue horses, or of the benignly freakish--as when Carlisle becomes fascinated with the bones of an ancient sea reptile he discovers while plowing his field. Finally, all practical affairs abandoned, his farm in ruins, he mounts the fossil on the side of his barn to remind passersby of ``how easily monsters can enter into our lives--and how easily, once they do, we can find a place for them.'' Some characters act out feelings of rage hidden beneath layers of civilized behavior: when Groder discovers that the blind man who has been painfully and constantly poking him with his cane has been faking his handicap, he sets out to run him down in his car. In other stories, the author explores the tense dynamics between husbands and wives, the complexities of anger and betrayal, and the surprising tensile strength of seemingly fragile bonds of love. Croft's work has appeared in The Kenyon Review , Georgia Review and other publications. (Feb.)