Wit and wisdom: short stories by a master and novels by a variety of writers take us on odd journeys.(Book Review)

* Damned If I Do by Percival Everett Graywolf Press, November 2004 $15, ISBN 1-555-97411-2

If Percival Everett were a rap star, the industry mags would say he has produced a string of hits, maybe not in sales but creatively and artistically. After critically successful books such as Erasure (Hyperion, 2002), Glyph (Graywolf, 1999), Watershed (Beacon, 2003), and American Desert (Hyperion, 2004), it was time for the wizard of wit and irony to create an excellent collection of a dozen ingenious and humorous short stories, Damned If I Do, capable of mesmerizing the reader.

Everett, a professor of English at the University of Southern California, does not employ …