God Bless America.(Brief article)(Book review)

God Bless America

Steve Almond. Lookout (lookout.org), $17.95 trade paper (224p) ISBN 978-0-9845922-3-4

Almond (My Life in Heavy Metal) hears America singing, and the country is way off-key, at least in this collection of 13 irony-laden short stories. In the title offering, a would-be actor and Boston Tea Party re-enactor believes that America is the land of "opportunists" and, through an improbable series of circumstances, accidentally proves this statement to be true. In "Not Until You Say Yes," a crabby airport security woman is forced to babysit an unaccompanied minor who turns out to have the larcenous heart of a natural-born con man. In the amusing "Tamalpais," …