Nights from this Galaxy

Weitzel debuts with a collection of lyrical and hypnotic stories about people facing darkness. In “Lion,” a graduate student boards with an elderly retired professor in an unnamed country. The student tells his host a story about a boy who grows up with a lion, which is set free once it’s fully grown, and the host pleads for him to tell it again and again, asking for more details. After the host dies, his body “like an old moist cigarette,” the student is finally struck by the story’s meaning. “The Night Shades of the Ocean” follows a financially struggling couple after a bank robber stashes a bag of cash in their building. The man in the couple finds the loot and wants to turn it in to the cops. His partner disagrees and starts spending the money. Later, she’s startled by the fleeting thought that she should kill him. In “The Canoeist,” Kathy and her boyfriend Paul spot a wild lynx while she processes the recent death of her father. Kathy, who is white, had an uneasy relationship with her father, who was racist and disapproved of Paul, who is South Asian. Throughout, Weitzel adds sharp psychological insights to the mix of strange images and situations. This one ought to make a splash. (Mar.)