RARE AND ENDANGERED SPECIES

Although Bausch (Rebel Powers, 1993, etc.) occasionally rests on his laurels here, this collection (some stories appeared previously in Harper's and other magazines) supports his reputation as a masterful short-fiction writer who fearlessly addresses love and its many permutations. One of Bausch's greatest talents is his ear for dialogue, and he has a way of replicating its rhythms while pointing up the ridiculousness of daily communication. ``Aren't You Happy For Me?'' consists mostly of a telephone call between a 23-year-old daughter and her father as she announces that she is getting married, that she is pregnant, and that her fiancÇ is 63. The discovery of a single ``High-Heeled Shoe'' in a field causes a man to contemplate the first and only affair during his 25-year marriage, and in speaking to his wife he is never quite sure whether he has revealed his secret. ``Tandolfo the Great'' is a part-time clown who drives to perform at a birthday party with a wedding cake in the back of his car, having intended to use it to propose marriage only to discover that the woman he secretly loves has reconciled with a former boyfriend. He takes out his sadness on the birthday boy and is tossed out of the party, almost losing his rabbit in the process. The title novella is a finely nuanced look at the aftermath of a suicide. A woman and her husband are forced to sell their farm, and before moving day she goes to a motel and swallows a bottle of pills without leaving a note. The narrative peels back layers and reveals shards of information about her and her family- -she had almost left her husband for another man 15 years earlier; her daughter Maizie has come tantalizingly close to an affair with a co-worker—and deals with the big question by letting it hang unanswered. Pauses and crossed signals that echo loudly.