Fine, Fine, Fine, Fine, Fine

The hysterics in Fine, Fine, Fine, Fine, Fine have already fallen apart, and author Diane Williams catalogs their damage with avant-garde zeal. "I don't like you very much and I don't think you're fascinating," a man says to his wife as he dresses, while in other short shorts (two of the stories are fewer than 100 words), characters scheme, drown, lust, and struggle to understand one another. "It should have been nicer–our friendships, our travel, our romances secretly lived–if we weren't so old," begins the narrator of "A Little Bottle of Tears," describing a dinner party marred by his infidelity. "But still," he allows, "it was an interesting situation to be in." That's the kind of sly hope this collection can't help offering amid all the despair.