Ranging from the bitingly reproductive antics of “Baster” to the dreamy, moving account of a young traveler’s search for enlightenment in “Air Mail,” Jeffrey Eugenides’ first collection of short fiction presents characters in the midst of personal and national emergencies. We meet a failed poet who, envious of other people’s wealth during the real-estate bubble, becomes an embezzler; a clavichordist whose dreams of art founder under the obligations of marriage and fatherhood; and, in “Fresh Complaint,” a high school student whose wish to escape the strictures of her immigrant family leads her to a drastic decision that upends the life of a middle-aged British physicist.

In the midst of the deep recession of the early 1980s, English student Madeleine Hanna is writing her senior thesis on Jane Austen and George Eliot, purveyors of the marriage plot that lies at the heart of the greatest English novels. As Madeleine attempts to align this literary theme with current ideals, she finds herself in a complex love triangle that continues long after graduation.