MONOGAMY by Marilyn Swick (HarperPerennial: $9)....

MONOGAMY by Marilyn Swick (HarperPerennial: $9). Most of Swick’s award-winning short stories center on women undergoing major physical and/or emotional crises. In “The Zealous Mourner,” a professional woman’s icy facade crumbles after a traumatic mastectomy: Spurning her husband’s calm reassurance, she seeks solace in the arms of the more vulnerable man she once rejected. The title story involves a man forced to confront a bigamous father and the haunting doubts that his conduct engendered. An artist struggles to cope with her aging, increasingly infirm mother and the memory of the illegitimate baby she put up for adoption in “Elba.” The regimented monotony of their lives finally leads her to begin breaking down the walls that separate her from the world--and herself: “Mother always got nervous when I tried to change anything around the place. She would have appreciated living at the scene of a murder, sealed off by the police, with no one allowed to touch a thing.”