SEDUCTION THEORY by Thomas Beller (Warner:...

SEDUCTION THEORY by Thomas Beller (Warner: $11.99; 205 pp.). A mischievous humor enlivens these tales of mismatched lovers and disillusioned children in Manhattan. In “The Dark Piano,� a mother calls her disgruntled son using “two inflections, like opposite halves of a broken cookie.� “Life Under Optimum Conditions� and “Nondestructive Testing� depict young professional men and women whose attempts to be sexy inadvertently alienate their partners; the hero of “Tearing at Grapes� catalogs the catastrophes in his life, from catching his girlfriend with another man on his birthday to breaking his nose for the third time in less than a year.