BEAUTIFUL DAYS

A clutch of eerie domestic tales, infused with contemporary paranoia.

Most of the stories in Williams’ bracing debut are narrated by mild-mannered men witnessing the world shift and warp around them. In “Trial Run,” a man finds a co-worker sunk in antisemitic conspiracy-mongering about the boss. In “A New Toe,” a father finds that his infant son has sprung exactly that. An especially effective (and hallucinatory) story, “Lucca Castle,” takes its narrator from gentle anxiety over the well-being of his daughter to odd coincidences involving his girlfriend, late wife, and an apocalyptic theorist. Much like George Saunders, Williams develops setups rooted in equal parts absurdity and peril: “Return to Crashaw” is narrated by a tour guide at a peculiar desert site filled with megaliths of unknown origin; “Wood Sorrel House” and “Ghost Image” both turn on fathers whose families fragment in post-apocalyptic scenarios. But unlike Saunders, Williams doesn’t mine his setups for humor, cultivating a horror story vibe. In “Mousetraps,” a man’s hunt for a humane trap takes him into the depths of a hardware store, a mazelike symbol for humanity’s own constrictions, and “Red Light” takes what should be an erotic kinky online hookup and makes it a minefield of uncertainty. Some stories, like “Ghost Image,” push narrative cohesion to the breaking point, recalling Barthelme at his most out-there. But throughout, Williams is determined to metaphorically work through the fear and feelings of disassociation from modern life. We’re much like the narrator of “Golf Cart,” who in the middle of the night is summoned by his brother to confront some unnamed and unseen dangers: As the story intensifies, the narrator’s brother muses, “There’s no way life is real." Williams persuades you that the guy might have a point.

Lyrical, well-crafted, offbeat yarns.