What strikes one first in a Stafford story is the language—exact (though sometimes unusual), correct, extremely controlled. The tone is correspondingly cool, no matter how disturbing or impassioned the story. Stafford avoids dialogue, much preferring interior monologue or indirect discourse. Consequently, a good many stories are set in a past remembered by the central narrator. Her range is, however, hardly narrow; she can create an idyllic college love story in "Caveat Emptor," describe in searing detail the mental state of a woman about to undergo facial surgery ("The Interior Castle"), and capture the dull ache of being lonely in New York ("Children are Bored on Sunday"). Perhaps her finest story, "In the Zoo," relives the horrifying past of two young girls prey to their vicious guardian, and yet ends in laughter.

"New in Paperback: 'The Collected Stories of Jean Stafford'," in Book World—The Washington Post (© 1980, The...