Some books have an uncanny ability to stir up images in readers' heads.

As I read the melancholy You Are Not a Stranger Here, by Adam Haslett, sandalwood incense seemed to sneak into my nostrils as the lyrics of REM's "Everybody Hurts" resonated in my ears.

You Are Not a Stranger Here is not a book you would hand to a jumper on the ledge. The plots of its nine short stories are all somewhat depressing, if not downright heart-wrenching.

However, this book does an honorable job in attempting to unite its readers through these types of shared sufferings, affirming the fact that no one is a stranger to the "valley of the shadow of death."

Not all of these nine short stories are noteworthy. While Haslett's tales usually keep the reader guessing, a few of them are groping for meaning. When his stories fail, they resemble model airplanes -- gorgeously assembled, but lacking drive. Haslett starts with a good idea in "My Father's Business," but he forgets to advance his plot beyond ramshackle, schizophrenic conversations.

"Reunion" is a story about a man writing letters to his deceased father. Throughout the whole story, the reader is grasping for some punchline, some clever turn of events to save this story from its trite ending. That redeeming point, however, never arrives.

Besides a few failed tales, most of Haslett's plots are genuinely intriguing. The first, and best, story in You Are Not a Stranger Here is "Notes to My Biographer." It relates the adventures of a mentally ill man. The first-person narrative is jarring, brazenly honest and utterly random, effectively placing the reader into the old man's delusional mind.

As the story progresses, this elderly man pens his own memoir, so that his eventual biographer will be sure to get it all right. From indefinitely "borrowing" his niece's Saab to his firm belief that the electric bread slicer was his idea, this comic-tragedy keeps the reader laughing, but keeps you thinking.

Another story, "The Good Doctor," concerns an empathetic physician on a routine house call. This young man, who has always been drawn to pain and hurting, finds out he needs his patient more than she needs his diagnosis.

In the last story, "The Volunteer," an unlikely relationship between an institutionalized woman and a high-school misfit profoundly affects both their lives. The teenager is "the only kid at his school that gets his romantic advice from a schizophrenic." The woman showers her love on this boy, the child that she should have had. In the end, they both find satisfaction and purpose in each other.

Though a few stories in the book are incongruously poor, the majority of Haslett's work makes readers look forward to his future endeavors. As the saying goes, Misery loves company, and there are few authors better than Haslett at throwing a shindig for sorrow.