Masques for the Fields of Time

Skewed, that word best describes the characters and situations and time frames in Taylor’s fourth story collection, Masques for the Fields of Time. Takes the opening story, where a dance seems to be taking place during the narrator’s youth, for his baby-sitter is busily flirting on the dance floor with another teenager. But then time skews and the dance is taking place—when? And those puppets in the rafters, seemingly pulling strings on all the dancers—what are they doing? Well, maybe the collection’s last story will clear things up…or does it only skew matters further, for this story’s protagonist is swimming, yes swimming, on a mission to obtain headstones—now irritatingly called “grave markers,” he complains. Okay, then, in another story we at least have the comfort of Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus confronting Simone de Beauvior—but why do tiny voices haunt the trio with religious barbs? With humor both grim and playful, all the stories in this collection explore the twists human perception can take.