One Way or Another

Peter Cameron's first collection of short stories, published while he was in his mid-twenties, marks the auspicious debut of a rare talent. Here characters act on lies they spin to protect themselves, or to protect others. In "What Do People Do All Day?," a child gamely stalls a father's confession of adultery. The heroine of "Fast Forward" tells her dying mother that she's engaged--a lie designed to give the old woman a final few days of happiness. And in "Memorial Day," a teenage boy struggles to adjust to his mother's new husband, a stepfather only thirteen years his senior.