Day Care

Lange (Us Fools) entertains in this sharp and off-kilter story collection. After the husband of the title story’s unnamed protagonist abruptly moves to Utah, she’s forced to single-parent their toddler daughter in Los Angeles, where she seeks to schedule casual sex during her daughter’s day-care hours. She goes online for help with her dating profile, where other mothers “slammed her for being a new mom with sick slut desires,” then “privately called her their hero.” She has some initial success with hookups, but the project is complicated by a visit from her mother. In “Heart Beats,” Boston couple Carol and David attend a dinner party, where their hosts invite them to play a “kinky” and “extreme” form of spin the bottle, and the night ends with David grappling with the outcome. In one of the more emotionally potent entries, “Dog Star,” teenager Honey lives in an artificial world, where she and her best friend, Alice, chafe at their circumstances. As Honey puts it, “We’re given trampolines, but we’re told not to jump on them,” to which Alice responds that at school, they’re “expected to grow and to learn and to progress, only to suffer for it.” Lange’s well-honed stories build to stinging epiphanies. Those with a taste for acerbic wit will find much to enjoy. (Apr.)