Lessons about love are learned at every stage of life. Disappointment and heartbreak are emotions that one can never grow out of. In Nadine Bismuth’s new collection of stories, Fidelity Doesn’t Make the News, the Montreal-based writer explores exactly how people cope when their worlds are turned upside-down.

“A Well-Kept Secret” and “The Garden of Eden” are smart and witty stories of young women in hard situations, trying to find where they belong. The playful ironies and straightforward characters are engaging.

First-person perspective is used in every story in the collection to dig deep into the characters’ psychological depths. The clever “Maid of Honour” is a sister’s retelling of learning that the truth often does more damage than good. “Historic Site,” however, is the strongest story in the collection, with its brilliant pacing, well-rounded characterization and Gothic European setting. Before the brutal climax, the story magically incorporates Poe-like atmospherics, especially in the descriptive, tension-filled descent into the Domburg Castle hostel’s walls: “The musty smell clamped down on my throat. There were spiderwebs hanging from ceiling to floor and the only window was boarded up with an old rotting plank.”

However, not all of the collection’s stories work. “Cheap Love” is paralyzed by wooden characters, and the obsession of the young man in “A Hot Potato Like My Heart” is too overworked to be fully enjoyed. The weakest story in the collection, though, is “Chinese Fondue.” It’s a by-the-numbers observation of petty bourgeois pretensions that falls into the trap of predictability, with its stereotyped characters and stock situations. The conflict is tedious and too long and the resolution predictable, complete with a revenge sex scene between two of the characters when the infidelity between their respective partners is revealed. With cringing lines like “So she screamed one last time, ‘Take me, Jean,’” the story could easily have been left out of the book.

Bismuth’s collection, overall, is an intelligent work that deserves praise for the boldness of its experimentation, wit, irony and the sheer gracious economy of its language. This young writer, early in her career, is a powerful observer of thoughts and deeds, but some of these stories serve as mere distractions from the general power of her impressive insight.