A FRIENDLY DECEIT by Greg Johnson...

A FRIENDLY DECEIT by Greg Johnson (Johns Hopkins: $12.95). Johnson’s resonant short stories represent regional writing in the best sense of the term: The unique atmosphere and sensibilities of the author’s native South color his prose, imbuing it with a special vitality. In the title story, the fictitious accounts of his vanished father offered by well-meaning relatives cause a young boy to grow up mistrusting any emotional bond. “Intensive Care” captures the impotent rage of a decent, ordinary man watching his estranged brother die of AIDS: He learns, too late, the price exacted by years of aloof silence and disdain. In “Nickels and Dimes,” Johnson draws an affecting portrait of a helpless, homeless drifter--a man with no particular ambitions or skills--plummeting through the tattered safety net of America in the ‘90s.