Women in Love

Lorrie Moore has followed her maiden voyage of stories, Self-Help, with Anagrams (Knopf), a boyfriend novel with complications (a breast lump, an abortion). Moore's Benna is a poetry teach who has an affair with a talented black student and exchanges rueful witticisms with her trusty sidekick, Eleanor, about what scuzz men be. Wordplay abounds, supposedly mirroring the antics of a world gone askew, but the strained, dorm-room puns ("cereal monogamy") won't remind anyone of Peter De Vries. And since Benna and Eleanor sound alike. Anagrams reads as if Moore were cracking wise out of both sides of her mouth. Talent and laughs here, but the stereophonic jocularity gets taxing, and Benna's imaginary daughter is a bit of pixilation Moore ought to be beyond.

Far hardier is Alice Munro's latest story collection. The Progress of Love (Knopf), which has the soft blue hold of faded jeans. No flash from this Canadian writer, just a tentative coming to terms with her characters' imperfections. "Circle of Prayer" has a healing touch, "Lichen" circles around sex with a thorny, bemused wit just this side of sarcasm, and the title story curls and lifts to its conclusion like chimney smoke.

JAMES WOLCOTT