As noted on the flyleaf, this book, published in 1956, is not an anthology. The four writers represented here simply admired and enjoyed each other’s work and decided to publish some of their recent fiction together in a single volume. More than 60 years later the stories stand up well, though inevitably some have aged better than others. Jean Stafford (1915-1979) was a novelist and short story writer whose collected short fiction won the Pulitzer Prize in 1970. The five stories included in Stories demonstrate Stafford’s talent for characterization and are often very humorous (see “Bad Characters”). Stafford places dramatic emphasis on the tensions between generations, and the stories often portray young people struggling to break free of family obligations and gain an independent foothold in the adult world. John Cheever (1912-1982), who gained fame for publishing more than 100 stories in the New Yorker over 5 decades and for his Wapshot novels, also won a Pulitzer for his collected stories, in 1980. His contribution consists of four stories heavy with sun-dappled, New England nostalgia. Standouts include “The Day the Pig Fell into the Well,” written as a pseudo-memoir of the Nudd family’s summer holidays and which depicts a cherished way of life gradually vanishing as family fortunes and circumstances change over the years, and the wonderful classic story “The Country Husband,” in which Francis Weed survives a brush with death only to find himself embroiled in a distressing and embarrassing mid-life crisis. Daniel Fuchs (1909-1993), respected for his screenwriting and his fiction, contributes three stories, two of which are set in Hollywood with characters involved in the entertainment industry and which amusingly depict volatile and mercurial relationships among sets of wealthy, eccentric, and not-so-wealthy movie moguls. And William Maxwell’s (1908-2000) three stories are set in small-town and rural mid-west USA in the early years of the 20th Century and movingly portray the struggles of ordinary men, women and children to make the most of straitened circumstances. Throughout, the writing is nearly flawless, the comedy presented with grace and subtlety. Stories is entertaining from start to finish and serves as an excellent introduction to four noteworthy mid-20th-century American writers whose names and reputations may have faded somewhat from view but whose fiction will always warrant and reward the attention of readers. ( )