Fiction writers often till the same field book after book—think Anne Tyler's gently troubled Baltimore families, Philip Roth's postwar American Jews, John Cheever's suburban strivers. The easiest way to keep readers' attention, it seems, is to not move around too much. Valerie Martin doesn't take the easy way.

To keep up with her, you have to travel to 19th century England (Mary Reilly), to the pre—Civil War American South (Property), to modern day Tuscany (Italian Fever), to New Orleans in both contemporary and antebellum times (TheGreat Divorce). For her newest book, Martin ventures into the world of the artist's psyche. The Unfinished Novel and OtherStories, a novella and five short stories, published this month by Vintage as a paperback original, focuses on painters, actors, writers, dancers and the people who are unwise enough to get intimately involved with them.

"I find the whole business of artists and their minds intriguing—just what it takes to sustain their egos is amusing," says Martin. Amusing is a relative term. There is suicide, infidelity, the despair of stunted aspirations. Still, the dark humor, suspense and pure energy of the writing keep the stories from being depressing.

The collection is the 11th book by Martin, who at 58 is one of the most critically acclaimed—though far from one of the best read—fiction writers in America. It is also her first book since Property, the novel with which she literally beat the odds to win the 2003 Orange Prize over favored finalists Zadie Smith and Donna Tartt.

The Orange Prize judges called Martin's slim novel of slavery "the opposite of exuberant." It's a description that would fit Martin herself. She is a petite woman with a sensible haircut, comfortable clothes and a soft voice—an anti-diva who laughs when she recalls the spectacle of the Orange Prize ceremony, where she waited beside the other finalists for the winner's name to be called. "I was ready to hold Donna's purse," she says. When Martin heard her own name instead, she says, "It was just like being a movie star, a million cameras, all these people wanting to know how you felt."

Unafraid of the Dark

Martin's new collection is made up of stories she wrote over a 10-year period in between penning novels. In it, Martin moves forward in time almost two centuries, leaving behind the Southern plantation setting of Property for locations that include New York, New Orleans and Rome. Despite the change of scenery, Martin fans will recognize the restraint and unflinching exposure of moral flaws that characterize all of the author's work. "I think it really comes from her spirit," says her editor Nan Talese. "She's wicked, and amused by the wickedness, and she's not afraid of darkness." Her characters can be sympathetic, but rarely are they heroic. And Martin refuses to tack on upbeat conclusions.

"I think Americans in general prefer a happy ending," Martin says. "But I don't need to read to escape. I read to return to reality. Look at us, we live in escape." She is referring to the affluence of life in the U.S., but she might almost be talking about the comfortable Victorian home in upstate New York that she shares with her long-time companion, translator John Cullen.

During a recent conversation in their home, Martin brings up, with no small amount of pride, the fact that two of the books Cullen translated are on the shortlist for the prestigious 2006 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. Martin seems to take pleasure in the success of those around her. A mention of Margaret Atwood, with whom she has been close since the two met at the University of Alabama Tuscaloosa more than 20 years ago (Martin was the first person to read TheHandmaid's Tale), gets Martin talking about her friend's gift for storytelling.

Atwood has played a key part in Martin's career. Not long after they met, Atwood gave her editor, Talese, a stack of Martin's unpublished material. In 1987, Talese, who at the time was with Houghton Mifflin, published A Recent Martyr, which is set in New Orleans during a nightmarish time when the city is overrun by rats and devastated by a plague. That novel was the start of a personal and professional relationship that has lasted two decades.

At the BEA in Washington earlier this month, Martin, who had just gotten into town, ran into Atwood and Talese on a street corner. The three hugged, then linked arms and walked the few blocks to the convention center, clearly delighted to be in each other's company.

It was Talese who suggested publishing Unfinished Novel as a paperback original. She was concerned that because short stories tend not to sell as well, a hardcover version would do poorly in comparison with Property, and the descending sales would make it harder to get booksellers interested in Martin's next novel. That's no small consideration for an author whose books are made for handselling.

Martin's biggest selling book to date is the 1990 novel Mary Reilly, a reimagining of the Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde story told from a servant girl's point of view. The book became the basis of a movie starring Julia Roberts. The movie bombed, but money from the film rights did enable Martin to put her daughter through New York University.

She followed up with The Great Divorce, which has both a historical and a contemporary setting, as the book alternates between the points of view of three women. Martin, who spent three years living in Rome during the 1990s, set her next two books in Italy. One, Italian Fever, is her most lighthearted work and centers on an American woman's sexual awakening with an Italian lover. The other is a biography, Salvation:Scenes from the Life of St. Francis.

'Crock of Lies'

Property is arguably Martin's masterpiece. The author, who was born in Missouri but grew up in New Orleans, says the novel was her answer to the "crock of lies" she was taught as a child. "I was sick of the notion that slavery wasn't that bad." Instead of taking the point of view of a slave, a readily sympathetic character, Martin tells the story in the first-person voice of a grotesquely self-absorbed female slave owner.

"I'm really more interested in what power does to the person who has it than to the person who doesn't," she says. "I'm interested in what it does to a person's psychology to be someone who does terrible things." For Property to work—and it does, beautifully—the reader has to connect with a woman who is repugnant in thought and action. Again, Martin takes the hard way.

The last scene of Property says more in three pages about what oppression does to the oppressor than a library full of psychology texts. "She's very smart with language," Atwood says. "She writes very succinctly. There's not a wasted word." Atwood also praises the honesty in Martin's writings. And she says there is a thread connecting her diverse body of work. "The constant theme is people not understanding what's going on," Atwood says. "You the reader know the person is making terrible mistakes because they're not understanding." That's true of The Unfinished Novel and Other Stories, though citing any examples would spoil the pleasure of these stories, in which the narratives hinge on that moment when the character finally gets what's happening.

Martin's next book, a novel she expects to finish in August, involves the daughter of a Louisiana oyster man from Croatia who marries into a comfortable suburban New York family. It is set in 2002, during the run-up to the war in Iraq. The book grew out of a confrontation the author had a few years ago with an Albanian poacher who was hunting on her land. Lost? Wait for the book. Martin will get you there.