THE AMORALISTS AND OTHER TALES

Competent slice-of-life stories about black Chicago in the 60's; some of the tales are previously unpublished, though most originally appeared in Colter's out-of-print collection, The Beach Umbrella (1970). The newly published stories deal overtly with politics and race relations: a black mother turns against the Vietnam War in ""The March""; in ""The Frog Hunters,"" a young white boy at summer camp broods over the impending breakup of the marriage between his mother and his black stepfather. Unfortunately, these pieces haven't aged well: in tone and style, they read like old-fashioned magazine fiction, and the prose is often pulpy (""Abby derived a jaded excitement from every minute of her present life-style""; ""Gaping at him, she could not speak, as the final glimmerings of horror came on her face""). Colter's stories won't have wide appeal as fiction--not literary enough on the one hand, not popular enough on the other--though they succeed to a greater extent as a chronicle of a time and place.