Zolitude: Stories

In the title story of this spikily surreal debut collection, one of the characters declares, "Neuroscientists have concluded that love and fear are the only two physiologically measurable emotions," and those emotions radiate throughout these vivid, complex stories, though fear seems to predominate. Acting as go-between for Simona, who intuits that her lover intends to kill her, the narrator of "Zolitude" meets the troublesome Lars at a wine bar (where "daylight shows up to eat its lunch over our desks, then leaves") and finally absorbs the sense of unease. Popov, a police officer who once patrolled the mountains on a huge black gelding with claws for hooves, recalls courting his wife at a time when anarchists were rioting. Another fierce, birdlike creature punishes men for their sins as the book bus woman tries to save one of them. In yet another story, a man hoping to visit an ancient temple is blocked by a creature with "mean little forearms" and eventually encounters scenes of ongoing war ("POWs eating their own bowels in tiger cages").