The Thaw

Gunnarsson’s (Potter’s Field) stories, set mainly in Iceland, are generally unremarkable. “A War Story” features a boy, his taxi-driver grandfather, and the boy’s art project. In “The Beauty Contest,” Sigvaldi, an aging rock ’n’ roller, gets a chance to perform a duet with a famous pop star at the 1985 Miss Iceland Pageant. “The Tunnel” is about a couple that inspires the envy of others on their 40th wedding anniversary. In the title story, Ragnar and Jonas are brothers who work as handymen. The plotting is standard-issue, but the depictions of loneliness and the joys and sorrows of alcohol are memorable. The best of the collection is the suspenseful and moving “Killer Whale,” in which a man takes his gravely ill daughter and her nurse whale watching. (Jan.)