The Invention of Violence

Gunn's stories--some of which resemble long letters from crazy people who have never mastered punctuation--do not always make perfect sense, but there is no doubt that his run-on, conversational style is one-of-a-kind. Sentences double back on themselves and stories are interrupted by subtitles, odd paragraphs separated from the rest of the text and other intrusions. ``Paul & Me'' is one man's employment history as it relates to Paul Harvey's radio show. A family that is ``Not Rich'' takes in a hitchhiker, only to wake up the next morning and find that the stranger has absconded with the son's baseball-card collection. ``Parental Authority'' follows the trials of child-rearing, beginning with birth: ``A man was my husband and when my first boy was born he went through it with me, some exercises and we'd practice during pregnancy, breathing exercises every day, and preparing yourselves for the experience of birth.'' The brilliant ``The Phone Was G.'s Ex-Wife'' follows a man's fluctuating emotions when his ex-wife calls for the first time in several years to let him know that there is a problem with one of their daughters. There are a few weaker entries, mostly stories in which the stylistic gambits do not pay off thematically. ``Life Is Hard for You'' is a rambling narrative interrupted by tighter paragraphs with a more objective tone, but the various sections feel disconnected, and in ``The Overnight Visit'' the abrupt switch from a story about having sex on alien sheets to a friendship with a jazz musician seems similarly senseless. Occasionally, this collection suffers from a repetition of tone, but its best selections reinterpret the familiar. (July)