FIDELITY

Faith, keeping it or breaking it, is the theme that ties together a debut collection from Canadian novelist Redhill (Martin Sloane, 2002).

The opening tale, “Mount Morris,” illustrates Redhill’s strengths and weaknesses. Tom and Lillian’s marriage fell apart over whether to have kids, but for 12 years they have had cordial if edgy annual reunions. This year will be different: Tom has a new romance that prompts feelings stronger than any he had for his wife. Redhill writes gracefully; his characters are appealing. Yet Tom never delivers his big news, and a low-stakes story fizzles out. The closing piece, “Human Elements,” has similarly low stakes. Russell, a depressed poet, has retreated to a lakeside cabin. A young couple invades his space: Kate and Sylvain, who are tagging frogs for an environmental project, may be breaking up, but does it really matter? The details of frog life steal the show. In some stories, the stakes are high, but the resolution is botched. “The Victim, Who Cannot Be Named,” for example, shows Peter and Margot Bowman undone by the discovery of a three-way sex video involving their 17-year-old daughter. These calm, enlightened parents are suddenly at sea, and their domestic shipwreck is beautifully rendered. Then Peter turns into a quite improbable vigilante, ruining everything. “A Lark” also seems all set to strike sparks. Bergman is pushing 40, happily married, a middle-management type living in Toronto. On assignment in distant Calgary, he has a liberating affair with a young trainee at his company. But Bergman abruptly ends it, and the story winds down ever so slowly, with the adulterer home free and no payoff. Other tales here falter with a dubious premise. In “Cold,” Paul gets word that former college roommate Louis is in a funk after the collapse of his marriage and flies to Europe to help him through it. Yet Louis is the same bore he always was, and Paul’s sense of obligation is mystifying.

A series of frustrating near-misses from an obviously talented writer.