DAMAGES

Highlights from 30 years of quirky, energetic, varied stories.

Canadian writer Fraser's stories are odd, sharp, often long, not easy to access...and impressive. The fictions collected here range widely in tone, subject, and setting. In the unusually short "Roget's Thesaurus," we see the famous compiler of similarity and difference still sorting the world in his dotage, at 91. "Waiting" channels the voice of a dignified Hindu server at a French restaurant, one who is also a sharp at tennis. In "Healing," a grieving widower signs on as a fruit-picker; "The American Caller" tells, in its akimbo way, the story of a disappeared child. There's "Foreign Affairs," among other things a harrowing account of multiple sclerosis, alongside "Taking Cover," a post-apocalyptic Noah's Ark riff told in the form of instructions for passengers. Fraser can remind one of a Canadian Stanley Elkin, with his rococo style and his tendency to be a bard of occupation—a good number of these stories are explorations of the ways our vocabularies and habits of mind and ways of seeing the world are influenced by the work we do, the roles we play. But the work has a darker exuberance than Elkin's; it's usually less lightsome and comic. Fraser is a talent, and the book shows off his eccentric vision, his phrase-making skill, and his inventiveness, but often the thread of narrative in his stories is gossamer. At 560 pages, the book seems closer to a collected volume than to a selected, and it might have benefited from a bit of winnowing, but the skill here on display is unmistakable.

Complex, nimble, peculiar stories from a Canadian writer well worth checking out.