The 12 stories in this first collection by New York Times best-selling author Perrotta include "The Smile on Happy Chang's Face," the Boston Book Festival's first One City, One Story selection.

Perrotta's stories are gems mined from the ball fields, living rooms, and barrooms of suburbia. Optimally, short stories are not mininovels but instead take a certain incident or atmosphere and elaborate, and with Perrotta, one sees how a single moment—a crushing collision on a football field, a hit batter at a kids' baseball game—can totally alter the course of a lifetime. In "Backrub," a teen watches his peers go to prestigious colleges while he becomes a pizza and drugs delivery guy. Why? Because he blew off writing the essays for applying to what he calls his "safety" schools. In "One-Four-Five," a session of unplanned, drunken parking lot sex ushers a doctor out of his practice and marriage and into a hopeful career as a blues musician jamming on "Born Under a Bad Sign." The collection's title? The distance dancers must remain separated at a junior high school prom. VERDICT Perrotta (The Leftovers) has a keen eye and sense of style. Ten short stories, all A-plus for anyone who enjoys short fiction or fiction, period. [See Prepub Alert, 3/18/13.]—Robert E. Brown, Oswego, NY