THE LAST OASIS by Daphne Glazer...

THE LAST OASIS by Daphne Glazer (The Sumach Press/Trafalgar Square: 13.95; 200 pp., paperback original). Glazer’s quirky short stories depict the same lower-middle class British milieu as the films of director Mike Leigh. In “Out of the Dragon’s Mouth,” “Self-Improvement” and “Elsie’s Revenge,” stolid older women search for a bit of excitement to brighten dreary lives bounded by lumpish husbands, unimpressive children and dull jobs. The younger characters in “Business Before Pleasure” and “Love Me Tender” realize equally drab futures await them, despite their wan hopes of escape. Glazer’s bitterly comic tales capture the wearily resigned mood of post-Thatcher England.