The Shrapnel Academy, Fay Weldon (Viking). “This...

The Shrapnel Academy, Fay Weldon (Viking). “This is an explosive little novel. . . . Fay Weldon carries a long, shiny needle, the better to puncture what passes for acceptable behavior” (Art Seidenbaum).

The Flood of ‘64: Stories, David Long (Ecco). Set in a small town “where you can still go down the road to start a new life,” the 10 tales in this volume “give a strong sense of the West’s frontier mentality” (Rena S. Kleiman).

Fast Lanes, Jayne Anne Phillips (Seymour Lawrence/Dutton: $15.95). “The story, beautifully devised to fit image to emotion, . . . is the closing of the cycle that began three decades ago with Kerouac’s ‘On the Road’ ” (Richard Eder).

The Good Woman, B. J. Chute (Vanguard: $15.95). “With stunning compassion and perceptiveness, Chute depicts . . . a middle-age divorcee who dodges her problems by transforming herself into a bag lady” (Judy Bass).

Artists & Enemies, Arthur A. Cohen (Godine). In these “novellas suffused with the sensibility of Europe between the wars . . . (the author is) living, thinking and recording events in cadences and rhythms unheard for half a century” (Elaine Kendall).