title: Theft: Stories
author:  N. S. K&ouml;enings 
description: Personal strength and resiliency are recurrent themes in K&ouml;enings's surprising and inventive collection (after the novel <I>The Blue Taxi</I>) of five longish stories. They focus largely on relationships and loss, beginning with Pearls to Swine, about a narrow-minded wealthy woman whose vision of herself as a magnanimous host is threatened when the invitation she extends to two young women has unforeseen consequences. Expectations are equally disrupted in the title story, which tracks the parallel mishaps that befall a na&iuml;ve female tourist in Africa and a bus ticket boy, Ezra. Assistance comes from the beyond in Wondrous Strange, when at a s&eacute;ance a woman receives instructions from an African spirit regarding a ritual she might perform to revive her ailing husband, and by extension, her own sense of competency. K&ouml;enings's writing is dense but focused, and she often suggests the endings of her stories early on, allowing the reader to focus on the characters' reactions, thoughts and emotions. The collection's richness and complexity prove K&ouml;enings to be a skillful and imaginative storyteller. <I>(Mar.)</I> <BR>Copyright &copy; Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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  ![](images/00021.jpg)
  
  
  My car was trashed. It sat in the senior parking lot where I’d left it that
  morning. Someone had smashed my headlights and taillights, put dents in my
  hood, and poured yellow paint all over my windshield. The paint was dry, so it
  had been done hours ago. I’d have to scrape the paint off. Somebody had
  painted a message on the hood in case I didn’t know why they’d done this to my
  car. It said, “It takes two to tango.”
  
  
  It had been a really long day. One of those days when I thought I was going to
  snap at any moment. Just stand up in the middle of class and scream, “I can’t
  take it anymore!”
  
  
  Then I saw my car. So, yeah. Bad day. Hell. Bad month. Bad year.
  
  
  I dr