Don't Tell Anyone (2012)

Best be sure your life is in tip-top shape before delving into Frederick Busch's searing collection of short stories Don't Tell Anyone, which treat the subject of love as though it were the backbone of a page-turning thriller. Busch's writing is so poetically precise and refined, so unsentimental (especially given the topic at hand), that the alienation of his characters — mothers from daughters, fathers from sons, wives from husbands — is all the more devastating. ''Who is to say what shuts down a heart?'' one protagonist asks. In these tales, Busch answers the question, brutally and beautifully. A