Of the almost 30 short fictions collected [in "Black Tickets"], there are about 10 beauties and 10 that are perfectly satisfying, and then there are 10 ditties—some of them, single paragraphs—that are so small, isolated and mere exercises in "good writing" that they detract from the way the best of this book glows. Jayne Anne Phillips is a wonderful young writer, concerned with every sentence and seemingly always operating out of instincts that are visceral and true—perceived and observed originally, not imitated or fashionably learned. Yet the occasional reminder of what total praise she must have received in any creative-writing class hurts her; this fine book is punctuated with tiny voiceprints, little oddities too precious to the author—or, perhaps, to her memory of their praise—to be thrown away….

Like many writers with natural reflexes for an important scene and schooled in paying loving attention to prose, Jayne...