FICTION

IN THE AIR by Robert Nichols (Johns Hopkins University Press: $26; 159 pp.) This book is laid out like a novel, but each chapter is a self-contained story. A few years ago, several million people held hands across the nation in support of starving people. Suppose they had just stayed on and on after the demonstration, continuing to make their political statement. They would need to be fed and supported. In Robert Nichols’ story, “The Warehouse,” the hand-holders finally congregate at a giant warehouse set up to feed them, and they find bits of paper strewn through the piles of grain. The litter is actually tiny photographs of starving people. For Nichols’ characters, global politics and personal reality blur. In another episode, “The Hostage,” an idealistic couple try to live by their beliefs: They make so little money that they owe no taxes and therefore can’t possibly be accused of supporting war. But even they can’t escape the tragic consequences of their world: They find washing up on the coast of Maine the bodies of Indians who died in the chemical disaster at Bhopal. Nichols depicts people of conscience merging their identities with society’s victims. As one character says: “The point is, there’s no way out.” In yet another episode, a town learns to listen to the tunes and messages of “The Secret Radio Station” that broadcasts in a language nobody can understand. These stories are disturbing, absurd and surreal. And when they begin to make sense, they’re really scary.