Peter Stamm’s latest collection of short stories takes us all over the map: from a writers’ retreat in Vermont to an emergency room in an unnamed city to a cruise ship in the Mediterranean Sea. The narrators, both male and female, are at once unnerving and heartening in their calm, understated reactions to extraordinary events.

The 40-year-old woman narrating “Cold Reading” is traveling alone. She was given tickets for a wonderful cruise by her boyfriend Frank, but they had broken up and she decided neither to refund nor share. The cruise ship has docked at Barcelona, and she begins yet another tour. She lags behind the group, loses the sound of the guide and begins walking, looking for a restaurant, until she runs out of sidewalk. It begins to rain, so she seeks shelter under a passageway. She paces back and forth trying to console herself and keep warm when a heavily accented German voice says over an intercom: “Come on up. Second floor. Left-hand side.” She hears a click and pulls open the heavy door.

"We may or may not see ourselves in these stories, but through [Stamm's] fiction, we identify the choices we are given day by day. We can only imagine what might happen if we say yes."

The upstairs apartment has exotic colors, thick Persian rugs, and an ornate tea stand with two cups. It smells of sandalwood. It's unlit, but the man who opens the door and takes her coat seems to be about her age, with his skin perhaps a darker tone. He introduces himself as Kumar and asks, “You’re Paula, yes?” Yes, she was. “You must not test me,” he says. “Test yourself.” The conversation is enlightening, although puzzling. When she leaves, she walks out in bright sunlight.

“Cold Reading” is short, and its activity takes place over just an hour or so. However, each step that Paula takes, each exchange that she and Kumar share, builds an uncertainty that seems both familiar and menacing. We all have walked in strange neighborhoods, and misjudged our time and location, but Paula’s acceptance of the stranger’s invitation to “come on up” quickens our pace of reading and grabs our attention. In this story, as well as the others in IT'S GETTING DARK, the curiosity of what might happen presents unsettling questions.

In “Sabrina, 2019,” an ordinary young woman agrees to pose for a local sculptor. She models in a crop top, low-rise jeans and sneakers; the session takes a few hours. Later she visits the completed sculpture identified as Sabrina, 2019 in the art gallery and explores every angle of her ears, every crease of her shirt, every line of her posture. The aluminum sculpture is only an inch or two larger than herself in real life, yet she feels oddly threatened. Sabrina goes to the gallery every day, rearranging her work schedule to do so, and eventually realizes she will be “forever immortalized in her averageness, a random girl in the sadness of her pose.”

In another story, “The Most Beautiful Dress,” Brigitte is attracted to Felix, the handsome, well-educated chief archaeologist of the firm where she is a graphic designer. Of the many women pursuing him, she is the plainest and least forward. But she truly loves archaeology, and they have one afternoon of working together near the lake. That was all.

Months later, Brigitte attends a company gala in a simple cotton dress and ordinary shoes; of course, she feels out of place with the other glamorous partygoers. Tired of watching the other women who are seeking Felix’s attention, she slips off her dress and dives into the lake. Brigitte becomes at ease in the water, imagining herself to be a woman in the Stone Age who also might have gone for a swim. She then climbs out, walks naked to the buffet and picks up a glass of Chardonnay. She raises a silent toast to Felix; after a moment, he nods back. She returns to the pier, slips into the lake once again and swims away.

Stamm creates ordinary characters who become the lead actors in extraordinary situations as they follow their instincts. He creates tension with simple sentences and language --- sometimes quiet, perhaps menacing --- then follows the characters and uses barebone frameworks to show what is happening. We may or may not see ourselves in these stories, but through his fiction, we identify the choices we are given day by day. We can only imagine what might happen if we say yes.