Without a hero

A critic recently said of T. Coraghessan Boyle, "More happens in one of Boyle's stories than in most post-Victorian novels." This is precisely the case in Without a Hero, fifteen stunning stories that each, in its own way, displays a virtuosity and versatility rare in literary America. In this, his fourth story collection, Boyle takes chance after chance, even to the point of reexamining the ethos of Ernest Hemingway, one of the masters of the form. In "Big Game," the wild animal safari takes place not in Africa but on a pay-per-shoot ranch in Southern California and includes an elephant hunt…