These eight new stories from the celebrated novelist and short-story writer Nathan Englander display a gifted young author grappling with the great questions of modern life, with a command of language and the imagination that place Englander at the very forefront of contemporary American fiction.   The title story, inspired by Raymond Carver&;s masterpiece, is a provocative portrait of two marriages in which the Holocaust is played out as a devastating parlor game. In the outlandishly dark &;Camp Sundown&; vigilante justice is undertaken by a group of geriatric campers in a bucolic summer enclave. &;Free Fruit for Young Widows&; is a small, sharp study in evil, lovingly told by a father to a son. &;Sister Hills&; chronicles the history of Israel&;s settlements from the eve of the Yom Kippur War through the present, a political fable constructed around the tale of two mothers who strike a terrible bargain to save a child. Marking a return to two of Englander&;s classic themes, &;Peep Show&; and &;How We Avenged the Blums&; wrestle with sexual longing and ingenuity in the face of adversity and peril. And &;Everything I Know About My Family on My Mother&;s Side&; is suffused with an intimacy and tenderness that break new ground for a writer who seems constantly to be expanding the parameters of what he can achieve in the short form.   Beautiful and courageous, funny and achingly sad, Englander&;s work is a revelation.