Believers

Many critics have sought to describe Charles Baxter's unparalleled gift for revealing the unexpected in the ordinary, for capturing the fleeting moments that indelibly define a life, for articulating the moral and emotional quandaries that can besiege us as we balance love and responsibility. All these hallmarks of Baxter's work are on brilliant display in Believers, his fourth collection of short fiction. In "Reincarnation" the last hours of a summer dinner party find three couples musing about their previous lives and recalling those instances of recognition that have the power to transform…