Juliet Was a Surprise

Bill Gaston's characteristic keen insight and wit dazzle in this new collection. Here, we see the world through the prism of unfamiliar perspectives: a bank executive whose excellent sex life might in fact be killing her, an amorous tree surgeon better attuned to the values of his "patients" than to other people, a vacationing schizophrenic wary of his housemates, a pizza-delivery boy convinced he's witnessed magic-all struggling with the world as they see it.

This versatile collection-at t...