A HANDBOOK FOR DROWNING by David Shields...

A HANDBOOK FOR DROWNING by David Shields (HarperPerennial: $10; 178 pp.). Shields’ brief interlocking stories examine the contemporary problems of communication and feeling. Walter Jaffe, the book’s central character, is, simply, a mess. In any type of relationship he can’t muster more than a vague semblance of an emotion. His family is not so much dysfunctional as non-functional: Its members pay as little attention to each other and the outside world as they possibly can. Shields presents a morbid portrait of a self-indulgent Baby-Boomer who amounts to little more than a void surrounded by material goods.