From a writer with a cult following, a new book after a long silence constitutes an important event. These stories build upon P-town Stories, once again displaying a variety of incidents and voices: aging artists and writers warily eyeing the next generation, locals rubbed wrong by the summer influx of urbane strangers, a Portuguese native extolling a recipe for hot dog stew, a feisty mother bemused by the p.c. wars, inveterate hedonists of every stripe, diehard fishermen, mavericks, jacks-of-all-trades exiled by high rents, the overarching catastrophe of AIDS.