Double takes

STACEY RICHTER’S “Twin Study” is an examination of clones and doppelgangers, counterparts and alter egos, couples and duets. It is about who we are versus who we seem to be, right down to the very shadows that follow us in the flat, bright landscape of modern America.

These 12 surprising and engaging stories begin with the title piece, about identical twins meeting up for the first time in four years to participate in a study. Amanda is “the boring one”; Samantha, “the scarf dancer.” Amanda struggles to live a whole life, although she knows she is really half of one person. When her sister arrives, the story snaps into focus. “It feels so easy to just be half of her and let her be half of me,” Amanda thinks. “I half-think of the twin researchers, sharpening their pencils, waiting to interview us in the morning. Question: Do people understand you when you speak? Answer: Only my sister.”

This sense of beings divided permeates the stories. In “Velvet,” a terrier finds her wild side when she escapes her backyard for the desert, where she tussles with coyotes and catches a whiff of her proto-dog self. “There she was, a spayed girl and a knee-licker, seeing the kind of freaky visionary stuff very few pets ever get to see. She was afraid, she was shaking, but she plodded on, determined to transcend her little yard and her festooned ears and the pasty meat crackers that arrived at the same time every afternoon.”

This striving toward authenticity, toward finding one’s true self among the versions we present to the world, threads through the book. In “The Cavemen in the Hedges,” Neanderthals roam suburbia, threatening the ordered existence of an unhappy couple with the sexy lure of the ungroomed life. In “Christ, Their Lord,” another couple erect a messy, pagan display on the lawn, drawing the ire of their Christmas-obsessed neighbors. Many of Richter’s first-person protagonists are pretty girls struggling to be seen beyond their shiny surfaces. “I think beauty is consumed by capitalism in such a natural, complete way that no one notices or comments anymore,” Richter has said. She was raised in Arizona, and you can practically smell the chaparral on the blacktop.

With prose as beautiful and spiny as a flowering cactus, Richter coaxes us close enough to deliver a sting. The stories are wry and funny, reminiscent of Lorrie Moore at her snarky best. But darkness falls quickly in Richter’s world, as in “Blackout,” a chilling tale of date rape. Like Moore’s characters, Richter’s are trying to make a place outside the noise of commercial culture. In another story, two friends, one male and one female, both attracted to a “bad boy,” find communion in a misspelled sign.

“ ‘My God,’ he said, ‘look how they spelled “sandwiches.” ’

“There was a coffee shop on the opposite side of the intersection. The marquee said: ‘Fresh Sandwhiches Daily.’

“ ‘I think I like it better that way.’

“ ‘So do I,’ said Walter.”