Reviews of three new books.   Bucket of Tongues by Duncan McLean (Norton, 245 pages, $13) EVERYDAY BRUTAL Winner of the 1993 Somerset Maugham Award, this remarkably poignant collection of short stories is at last available in obthe United States and should appeal to fans of Duncan McLean's fellow countrymen Irvine Welsh and James Kelman. Not that McLean is directly following in their footsteps. His other writing, including a variety of plays and the novel Bunker Man, shows that he is indeed an original voice; his insightful travelogue Lone Star Swing, about his pilgrimage to the land of Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys, proves that he can capture a world beyond the depressing confines of Glasgow and Edinburgh. Nevertheless, it is the Scottish cityscape that McLean's characters inhabit in these particular stories. Drunks, soccer hooligans, disaffected teenagers and out-of-work lovers encounter disaster and disappointment in their daily routines, but they accept these mundane tragedies without self-pity, and therein lies the power of the work. With a combination of Welsh's dark optimism and Kelman's attention to the quotidian, McLean sensitively yet unflinchingly gives us a big old slice of what reviewers call the "gritty" (i.e., working-class) life. And he does so musically, using local dialect to render the stories textured and alive. The rough language may be off-putting to some, but ultimately it enriches the work, breathing life into these stories of suffocation. Jonathan Morrow   The Notebook of Lost Things by Megan Staffel (Soho, 240 pages, $23) DEATH IN PARIS The Notebook of Lost Things opens in October, a month befitting the novel's theme of loss. It's the time of year for killing chickens and remembering: As Helene drops the blade on the birds' necks, she thinks of her mother, who died two years ago in October, and of her brother, who left home one year later. Helene's life in the small, once-prosperous town of Paris, N.Y., seems flat and void of passion. Why does she stay at her uninspiring post-office job, with her disagreeable lover, in the dilapidated farmhouse where she grew up? The other inhabitants of the languishing town are equally trapped: bookstore-owner William Swick by his dwarfism; teenager Stella Doyle by her mother's obesity and neglect; English teacher Faith Cleveland by her closeted homosexuality. Entering each of these characters' perspectives, Staffel weaves their stories together somewhat improbably, touching heavily on the losses that have caught and stilled each of them. The metaphor binding these threads together is the "notebook of lost things," a journal Helene's German mother kept after the 1945 firebombing of Dresden destroyed every single thing she had ever known. The notebook catalogs her memories of the old Dresden; the spectacular and the mundane are rendered gorgeous in straightforward, simple descriptions. In much the same way, Staffel captures autumn in Paris, letting her observant eye linger equally on death and lovemaking, decay and food, the declining town and the hibernating landscape. While her stark, evocative language is compelling, Staffel's reliance on familiar topics--Germany during World War II, dwarfism, eating disorders, homosexuality--snares her in the net of comparison to Ursula Hegi (Stones from the River), Peter Hedges (What's Eating Gilbert Grape) and others. We care about these characters, but their hesitancy to escape their confinement is too closely mirrored by the author's inability to stake out untraveled thematic ground. Karen E. Steen   Shadows, Fire, Snow: The Life of Tina Modotti by Patricia Albers (Clarkson Potter, 304 pages, $30.00) Powell's, 1005 W Burnside St., 228-4651. 7:30 pm Wednesday, Aug. 25. Free. LIFE PORTRAIT Patricia Albers' new biography generously recounts the life of the shape-shifting artist and radical Tina Modotti. Known perhaps most famously from Edward Weston's sensuous portraits, Modotti was a fixture of leftist circles from the 1920s until her death in 1942. Though she was involved in socialist activism in Spain, Berlin and Moscow, her spiritual home was Mexico. Albers' narrative brings new depth to Modotti, who is often cast as a peripheral figure in biographies of her more famous fellow travelers. Most notable about this biography is Albers' access to a trunk of Modotti's belongings through the family of the artist's first husband. Hailing from Brooks, Ore., Roubaix de l'Abrie Richey is often portrayed as an enigmatic French-Canadian in biographies. A fuller picture of Robo emerges in this book, as well as an intimate glimpse into the formation of Modotti as an artist. Post-revolution Mexico, bohemian California and the radical '30s form fully rendered backdrops to Modotti's tumultuous life. Modotti counted among her friends and admirers Pablo Neruda, Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo, and Modotti's portraits of Mexico's poor and downtrodden still occupy photography's canon. Shadows, Fire, Snow is an engaging read, bringing to light a full portrait of a woman who was both artist and muse. Daniel Duford - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Willamette Week | originally published August 18, 1999