At the Copa (Prose Series)
Emotional upheavals undermine the pedestrian routines of middle-age and  senior characters in these engaging stories.    The primary fault zone is the seemingly stable, secretly unhappy,  middle-class marriage, often of Italian-American pedigree, seen from  various views. In "When Michael is Away," a new mother wonders if her  orderly, dutiful husband is having an affair, and whether she even cares. A  visit from a willowy blond saleswoman prompts a wife to ponder her lesbian  proclivities in "The Knife Lady." The husband in "Future Games" encourages  his wife to have an affair with another man to save their floundering  marriage, and the resulting drama is parsed through the uncomprehending  eyes of their young daughter. A dentist whose wife merely tolerates him  seeks help from a faith-healing charlatan in "The Tooth Healer." "Surprise"  follows a woman's decision to clean house while her professor husband is  off camping--and throw out the marriage with the rest of the clutter. In  "After Victory," an elderly woman gets a call from the man she almost  married during World War II. A man evaluates his own collapsing, childless  marriage in light of his parents' sudden divorce announcement at his doted  upon brother's birthday party in "Ticket to Ride." And in the title story,  a seamstress in a custom swimsuit shop delivers to a devastated wife dumped  for a younger model the timeless advice that the way to a man's heart is  through his stomach. Labozzetta (STAY WITH ME, LELLA 1999) infuses her  stories with a wry wit and a subtle, nuanced feel for the shifting  emotional currents underlying seemingly placid lives.    A funny, finely wrought collection. --Kirkus Discoveries