Winters Tales, New Series 5 - Hardcover

Neurosis, obsession and self-destructiveness drive many of the dozen stories in this strong annual roundup. In Muriel Spark's sinister "Open to the Public," a spinster incestuously devoted to her deceased novelist-father collects a series of young lovers who help exalt his memory. In Paul Sayer's scary "Othello's Shadow," a man's envy of women triggers round-the-clock spying on his wife. Culture shock pervades the two longest tales: Laura Kalpakian ("Lavee, Lagair, Lamore, Lamaird") transforms a comical Mormon family saga into tragedy as her heroine witnesses WW I's horrors; Georgina Hammick ("The American Dream") explores class consciousness among four preteens--one French, one American, and English brother-sister twins. Death is omnipresent: in Graham Greene's masterful "The Moment of Truth," a cancer-ridden waiter conceals his condition like a criminal secret, while Damon Galgut ("Cloete's Revenge") limns a South African corporal who forces an underling to murder a wounded black prisoner. Contributors to a feast of talent, new and old, include Jorge Luis Borges, David Updike and A. L. Barker.
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