You Must Be This Happy to Enter

The two most successful stories of Crane's third collection (following All This Heavenly Glory) are also the most intimate: The Most Everything in the World listens in on a husband and wife playing the what-would-you-take-to-a-deserted-island game, while Donovan's Closet, about a girl with a fetish involving her boyfriend's lemon-scented closet, turns into an optimistic tale of a seemingly doomed relationship's survival. Other characters in Crane's lineup include a suburban zombie turned reality TV star (Betty the Zombie), a time-traveling photographer who gets arrested for being happy (the title story) and a handful of other victims and survivors of not-so-everyday life. Because of Crane's repetitive narration the book is best read piecemeal rather than straight through: I don't mean literally everything. Literally most things, but not everything. In Promise, a story about a woman waiting for the arrival of her adopted child, which closes the collection, Crane quips, I will feed you sugar. And that might as well be Crane's promise for the collection as a whole. Whether breathlessly enthusiastic, serenely calm, or really concentrating right now on their personal zombie issues, Elizabeth Crane's happy cast explores the complexities behind personal satisfaction.