Contemporary West Coast Stories

Curtis, senior editor at the Atlantic , has assembled a line-up of 20 writers--among them Joyce Carol Oates, Ethan Canin, Amy Tan and Richard Ford--who deliver an array of short, punchy stories, loosely linked by their West Coast settings. Varied though these authors' voices are, their entries (all of which have previously appeared in print) have in common writing that is intelligent and finely honed. From Tobias Wolff comes ``The Other Miller,'' a deadpan parable of denial. Merrill Joan Gerber offers ``I Don't Believe This,'' a gut-wrenching account of a woman witnessing her sister's marriage fall apart. Life on the edges of society is described with a jittery, nearly hallucinogenic intensity in Peter Behrens's ``I-80'' and Robert Stone's ``Aquarius Obscured.'' In contrast, Harriet Doerr's soothing, melancholy ``Edie: A Life'' (the only tale in the collection that is not set in the latter half of this century) exudes nostalgic elegance. Provocative, piquant and a pleasure to read, this is a fine sampling of the work of a talented group of writers. (Nov.)