Serious Hysterics

A story collection about women ''bedeviled by symptoms,'' Alison Fell's Serious Hysterics is more accurately a group gripe about victimization. Only three of the contributors transcend the book's questionable premise and create believable characters in compelling quandaries. Marina Warner describes a failed mother who has kidnapped a stranger's child; Leslie Dick documents the bemusement of a young woman undergoing endless gynecological examinations of her malformed vagina; and Zoë Fairbairns shows how a wife who will believe anything is easily duped. The others succumb to preciousness and self-pity. C+