Prize Stories 1995: The O. Henry Awards

------------------------------------------------------------------ "Prize Stories 1995: The O. Henry Awards" Edited by William Abrahams Doubleday, $25/$10.95 ------------------------------------------------------------------

The 1995 O. Henry Award collection celebrates the series' 75th anniversary. This annual showcase of American short fiction has a long, illustrious history, and William Abrahams, the anthology's editor since 1967, has put in long service. This year, his taste for slowly paced narratives has resulted in an unnecessarily plodding collection.

The three most famous writers contribute weak work: Joyce Carol Oates' "You Petted Me, and I Followed You Home" is a tear-jerker about a bad marriage and a wee dog in a storm; "The Haunted Beach" must be Alice Adams' millionth revisitation to her unhappy-couple-in-Mexico story; and John Updike's "The Black Room" dwells on decor instead of characters for entire pages.

Yet there also is much fine writing later. Elliot Krieger's terrific "Cantor Pepper," which finds an old rabbi hiring a black man for his temple's musical needs, throws together Jews and gentiles with humor and insight. Deborah Eisenberg's "Across the Lake" is set in Central America and features her fascination with innocents - or ugly Americans - abroad, and Allegra Goodman's "Sarah" details the tribulations of a wonderful teacher of English as a second language. "Truth Serum," by Bernard Cooper, focuses on a man who "hears light" during therapy, while "Settled on the Cranberry Coast," by a former Seattleite, Michael Byers, is set near Tokeland, Wash.

But on the whole, this year's anniversary collection features fiction that is competent, not remarkable.