Keepsakes & Other Stories

From Publishers Weekly?These seven gentle tales set in Minnesota and North Dakota and all written during the 1970s treat fans of novelist Hassler (A Green Journey; Jemmy) to the earliest fruits of his talent. Some are folksy portraits of small-town characters, while others are drier and more plot driven. Both the title story and Resident Priest feature crusty, 74-year-old Father Fogarty, a pastor whos leaving his parish after 23 years. In Chief Larson, a seven-year-old Indian boy, known (rather improbably) only as chief on the reservation, rebels in a small but telling way against his white adoptive family. Good News in Culver Bend tracks two city reporters who travel to a small town and discover the heart of Christmas. Chase and Christopher, Moony, and the Birds show how frustrated residents of small towns seek solace. The former, so brief its nearly a prose poem, hints at Hasslers own adolescent discovery of his talent for fiction; the latter follows a lonely 50-year-old college professor as he goes on a consolatory walk with a students awkward wife and child, watching birds on family outings, hopping and halting on the grass. The cleverest story, Yesterdays Garbage, follows a garbologist who finds the truth about a murder in a trash bin, and is then led to commit one himself. The publisher plans to issue Hasslers later short fiction in three more volumes, starting in the year 2000. (Sept.)