WORD OF MOUTH

Often little more than a paragraph in length, these stories by contemporary women writers range from the very good to writing of a confessional kind found more usually in mass-circulation magazines. The preoccupations are understandably female and feminist, and relationships with mothers, lovers—both male and female—and other women predominate. Writers like Celia Gilbert (``That Changes Everything''), Jane Meredith Adams (``Beauty Tips''), and Kris Vervaecke (``Barbara and Marsha'') describe aptly the way mothers can exasperate and wound (``don't be so nervous; you were always so highly strung'') or can share an incomparable closeness (``Barbara knows that she is waiting for her mother to begin cutting the pattern of her grief; Barbara will know its parameters; their hearts are the same muscle''). Laura Chester's ``The Answer'' and Susan Volchok's ``Up All Night'' are wry and deftly written accounts of love affairs with men; while Nancy Slonim Aronie's ``Forever Hold Your Peace'' and ReneÇ Hansen's ``The Ingrid Bergman Plan to Suicide'' are two notable pieces with lesbian themes. Other accomplished stories are: LeslÇa Newman's ``Every Woman's Dream,'' in which the narrator tries to outwit a man in the street who's making obnoxious comments; and Rosalind Warren's fablelike ``Tunafish,'' in which all the sorrows and fears troubling the teenage protagonist are miraculously vanquished. The overwhelming, obsessive self-absorption makes for a claustrophobic read, relieved fortunately by those writers whose women connect to wider themes and experiences.