At their best, the stories of Richard Bausch capture lives in extreme situations, which doesn’t always show people at their best but often scrapes away whatever masks we wear and reveals truths, beautiful or ugly. Of course an extreme situation need not be one of violence, though it is in “Valor,” “Fatality,” and “Two Altercations.” It might be a dinner at a fine restaurant celebrating a couple’s first anniversary, as in the title story, “Someone to Watch Over Me.” The latter situation becomes extreme if the ancillaries are just right, and in this case they most definitely are. This story is especially fascinating because our sympathies are almost entirely with one character through much of the story but then somehow begin to shift until by the end they are almost entirely with the other character. That’s a remarkable feat. But just one of many that arise in this fine collection.

I’d like to say that every story here is exceptional, but of course even in a fine collection some will strike different readers as more exceptional than others. For me, apart from the title story, the two that stood out most were “Glass Meadow” and “Par.” The latter, in particular, has a very weak central character, deliberately so. You might suppose that might make the story collapse in upon itself. It doesn’t. Here Bausch takes his weak character through a kind of dark night of the soul (a recurring theme, perhaps). And the character emerges intact, altered surely but intact.

I might have chosen “Nobody in Hollywood”, the final story in the collection, as my favourite. But that story (exceptional though it is) is so different from those that precede it that it almost feels like it should be in a different book. Or, perhaps a better way of looking at it, it suggests that there is much more to come from this writer, all of it well worth reading. ( )

Often in short stories, it seems that plot is sacrificed for the sake of coming across as more "literary." Sometimes it is done well, and I can applaud the author; afterward, however, I remember nothing of the story (oh, that was the story where Sally woke up in the morning, put on her make-up and... uh...)

Bausch shatters this idea of the story-less story while remaining intelligent and relevant. Here are several stories that entertain the reader but do not compromise character development or theme.

Personal favorites in this collection include "Fatality," "Valor," "Two Altercations," and "Par." ( )