In a recent interview in The New York Times, Donald Barthelme said of his art: "I grew up with disjunction … the world was turning upside down … Most of our reality is imposed on us." The stories [in Sixty Stories] reflect all of this: the disconnection between conversations and sentences, the sense of helplessness of many of his flat-voiced characters, the spare cool quality of abstract art….

Here are tales of good zombies…. And a balloon that covered New York City. People slid and rode on the surfaces of that balloon as one can do on the surfaces of these bizarre stories. "Fragments are the only forms I trust," Barthelme has said, and we believe him. The stories appear as scraps, doodles, snatches, bits and pieces of conversations, intimations of rituals and apocalyptic situations. "It is wrong so speak of 'situations,' implying sets of circumstances leading to some resolution, some escape of tension." A void inhabits the surrounding territory….

It is very difficult to be rescued from the "sickliness of same" when reading 60 stories in a row by a single author. The tricks, the ironies, the thumbprints show up all too clearly. And yet Barthelme does consistently surprise. His characters spring to life; odd situations—a vast balloon encompassing all of New York City—grow and thrive; we catch glimpses of ourselves delighting in slides of language, in fanciful swirls of a quiet subdued erotic play. The conclusion of the brilliant "A Manual for Sons," shimmers with wisdom and wit…. His "Critique de la Vie Quotidienne" bristles with the querulous humor of a hassled husband. The swift, often glib surfaces lure us into uncharged seas where, adrift, we look for something to cling to, even though it may be just another surface in the water ahead.

"There is something 'out there' which cannot be brought 'here,'" Barthelme admits, but his strange tales conjure up an "out there" that at once chills and delights. The vision is askew—and often resides in warmed-over existential pronouncements—but the details fascinate. And we find ourselves rooting for Balloon Man no matter how many Pin Ladies yearn to pierce him through.