The Lifeguard

April 28, 1997
After a 12-year hiatus, novelist and travel-writer Morris (Crossroads; The Waiting Room) returns to the form that earned the Rome Prize for her debut collection, Vanishing Animals. Although the 10 stories in the new volume are set in various locales, from a ski resort to the Caribbean, all focus on the quiet crises that can rock her mainly female protagonists' middle-class existences. In "Souvenirs," an adolescent girl is finally invited to accompany her parents on their annual trip to Florida. The unraveling of her illusions about her parents (and the way she acts out her disappointment) leads to a moving rite of passage. Marital stress, skillfully rendered, is the focus of several stories. In "The Wall," a second wife tries to erase the memory of her precursor by painting over the mural in their kitchen--a gift from her husband's first marriage--and discovers the void at the center of their relationship. In "The Snowmaker's Wife,'' a woman finds solace in an Indian myth after she realizes that her husband is having an affair. The sole male protagonist, in the title story, also experiences his vulnerability, in a potentially tragic situation. As elsewhere in Morris's fiction, occasional intrusions of the symbolic (and even supernatural) are made to seem natural and necessary. This is less true in "Losing Track," in which a visit to the site of dinosaur tracks by the parents of a runaway girl is freighted with more symbolic weight than it can bear. Such flaws do not undermine this poised and articulate collection, however.

June 1, 1997
These stories by the author of House Arrest (LJ 4/1/96) offer a range of characters and circumstances, yet the tone and structure are always the same: a somewhat bewildered protagonist tries to deal with a situation, tension builds, actions and feelings are rationalized, and the story ends abruptly, with no satisfying denouement. Sometimes the tension is caused by supernatural forces, as in "The Wall," in which an indelible mural on a kitchen wall has a mystical effect on the narrator's husband. In other stories, the tension results from prosaic domestic drama. The most successful story, "The Glass-Bottom Boat," about a housewife on vacation with her family in Jamaica who encounters local residents with magical powers, melds the enigmatic and the commonplace. The uptight, contained lives of Morris's characters are mimicked by her compact, bland prose. For comprehensive modern fiction collections.--Reba Leiding, Rensselaer Polytechnic Inst., Troy, N.Y.

October 1, 1997
YA-These 10 short stories are stitched together with the common threads of personal crisis, change, and growth. All have straightforward plots and good character development. Three stories have particular appeal to YAs. In a first-person narrative, "The Lifeguard" describes sitting in his elevated chair, adored by all the young girls on the beach, and waiting for a crisis. When a toddler stops breathing, he tries everything he has been trained to do but nothing works. The child is saved by a divorcee whose constant presence on the beach has both disturbed and intrigued the lifeguard. He is compelled to seek out this older woman who wordlessly embraces him and then sends him on his way. Told in retrospect and filled with precise detail, the story leaves readers to ponder how this experience influences his life. The hero of "Slices of Life" is a young pizza entrepreneur who has caring relationships with his girlfriend and his customers but not his ne'er-do-well father. In "Souvenirs," a girl begins shoplifting as she struggles with growing up and the changes that it brings. Several selections feature married women dealing with husbands and children. Some have supernatural elements. The stories are uneven in quality, but all are succinct and enjoyable. Each one ends with thought-provoking unresolved issues that are perfect for YA group discussion.-Nancy Karst, Fairfax County Public Library, VA