Brief encounters with Che Guevara : stories / Ben Fountain

Near-extinct birds of the central Cordillera -- Rêve haitien -- The good ones are already taken -- Asian tiger -- Bouki and the cocaine --The lion's mouth -- Brief encounters with Che Guevara -- Fantasy for eleven fingers.

Many a protagonist in this solid, aptly titled debut collection from Fountain seems to carry a deep guilt about privilege. Whether a graduate student kidnapped by guerrillas while doing fieldwork on a rare species of bird in Colombia or a relief worker in Sierra Leone caught up with a diamond smuggler, these characters navigate the moral minefield of doing good deeds while being very human. Fountain quietly builds a story so that the cultural reality of its setting seeps into the most mundane love affairs, golf tournaments, or fishing trips (the excellent "Bouki and the Cocaine"). Despite their various international settings and plots, the stories are not overweeningly ambitious and are rarely emotional or enlightening. If anything, they fall away from conclusions or epiphanies, which may be their most potent aspect. Only one story, the anomalous and well-paced "Fantasy for Eleven Fingers," about a piano prodigy in fin-de-siecle Vienna, strives for a Roald Dahl finale.