The Journey Prize-winning story “My Husband’s Jump,” centering on a ski-jumper who never lands, proves a pace-setting opening to this first collection by Jessica Grant. Like most of these brisk 23 tales, the story’s characters develop in mystifying snippets while scenes click by in quick cuts. Whole worlds hinge on intricate distinctions: between “jump” as either noun or verb; whether a girl’s toy plastic man is lost in the sandbox or found; the difference between being Holt Renfrew’s employee and his daughter. If it sounds bizarre, it is, and it’s not always satisfying.

Despite occasionally dumbfounding narrative splicing, Making Light of Tragedy sparkles with interesting forms. The whitespace transitions between scenes are more often elegant than clumsy in their sudden hops through time and place. And though the narrating voice sounds very similar throughout – whether third or first person, whatever gender or circumstance – and is occasionally drab or glib, it is always thoughtful.

The shortest pieces are generally the least compelling. “Aloha,” a three-pager about a couple panicking at the airport, finishes on a silly punchline about a bomb and comes across as little more than a cute anecdote. Like a few of the other stories, it never succeeds in wringing meaning from its tightly scripted characters, all of whom seem short-shrifted by the narrative.

The majority of these stories, however, take only a few paragraphs to assume a vivid largeness. Their worlds feel, if not always lived in, at least concrete. Happily, the book ends on a peak with “Milaken,” the longest and most intimate story. Revolving around the rock-climbing title character whose father named her after his favourite brand of cement, the story highlights the greatest strengths of Grant’s writing. The story is observant, playful, and empathetic. As the characters ask themselves if they would be willing to sever one of their arms and leave it trapped under a boulder forever just to go on living, we glimpse the varied ways the question echoes through their lives. Here Grant draws resonance from the hypothetical. Her rewarding excursions into this protean realm make for a promising debut.