THE TALL UNCUT by Pete Fromm...

THE TALL UNCUT by Pete Fromm (John Daniel: $9.95). Pete Fromm’s first collection of short stories centers on the small daily tragedies that afflict basically decent men and women who find themselves married or related to the wrong people. In “Shooting Stars,” an unsuccessful man struggles to accept his new role as a father: “The baby was a hell of a mess. He loved it he guessed. . . . But he thought he’d have liked it just for being. How did other people do it? How did they love something so much that only made everything that much harder?” Fromm is both a writer and an outdoorsman, and nature plays a significant role in many of his stories: A man haunted by the bitter legacy of a dysfunctional family finally comes to terms with his late father as he paddles a canoe through the lake he visited as a boy in “Eulogy.” The painfully honest emotions of a country man and an urban woman searching for some sort of common ground beyond their passion in “Eloping” offer a welcome change from the formulaic descriptions of anomie in New York City that characterize much contemporary fiction.