by Alice Adams
In these splendid short stories, the recurring theme is that of transients reflecting on their condition in life. In "Alaska," two domestics-one black and old, the other white and young—work for a wealthy old lady in San Francisco. The old cleaning woman tries to remember which of her four husbands she will see again when she goes home; the young woman, in terror because of a strange lump on her leg, goes to Alaska to visit her sister. Adams reveals movingly what goes through their minds and how each woman affects the other. In "Return Trips," a woman recalls her first lover, who died young, and the house where she once lived in the South. In a visit home she reverts in her imagination to the young woman she once was. A couple from New York try to adjust to life in a Southern town in "New Best Friends," in which Adams reflects on the power of lifelong relationships. A six-foot-tall young woman swims every day in "A Public Pool," increasing the number of laps, getting stronger, thinking about her sad life, of a visit to a psychiatrist that was supposed to be a joke. "Waiting for Stella" deals with a community of elderly people in California, all relics of a radical past, who assemble to mourn their most outrageous friend, Stella. These are chic, once-committed people with money enough to serve an elegant salmon and intelligence enough to sort through their pain when death deprives them of their most lively friend. The tale is typical of this collection, which confirms Adams' mastery of the short story form. Unlike her last novel, Superior Women, which was spoiled toward the end by elaborate plot machinations, Adams' stories seem uncontrived. The insights are flashes of brilliance, the endings always tidy and beautifully natural. (Knopf, $14.95)
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