And Yet They Were Happy

"Brilliant miniatures. . . . Like the fables of Calvino, Millhauser, or W.S. Merwin. . . . Beautifully blends short story and prose poem. . . . Mermaids, subways, floods, cucumbers, magicians. . . .The book is a gallery of marvels. Phillips guides us through the ''Hall of Nostalgia For Things We Have Never Seen,'' ''the factory where the virgins are made,'' and ''the Anne Frank School for Expectan...