"The average man is not what he used to be," J.C. Hallman writes in "The Epiphenomenon." In Hallman's funny, unsettling short-story collection, to be more -- or less -- than average results in philosophical and psychological distress.

Hallman's characters often live in suburbia. They gather for holidays surrounded, like the family in "Ethan: A Love Story," by furniture and knickknacks that reflect "the primitive culture from which their kind had evolved." In "Dalrymple," they frequent the Scenic Mall, "a great big structure, 467 stores," to drift away by the half-hour, the day, or longer in Dr. Dalrymple's Amazing Sleep Machine. Anything to while away mediocre lives.

Wondering why he feels other-than-average, the average man in "The Epiphenomenon" consults "the Maestro" at United Statisticians, who tells him he "must acknowledge that the average man knows he is average only in a world where all are average." In addition to the statisticians' offices, the building houses "a flying saucer cult," "a school for mimes and sad circus clowns," and "a cryogenics storage warehouse."

Leading such bland lives leaves Hallman's characters open to often-violent surprises:

• In the Ethan story, a ne'er-do-well and his 6-year-old nephew play a video game to exact revenge on the smug, sententious family upstairs.

• In "Savages," an opening in the acacias becomes the lair in which a neighbor lady seduces people.

• In the title story, a poetaster suffering from "chronic acuteness" is rushed to the hospital before his verse does much harm. Thankfully, he confesses, "there was a crew nearby who knew how to handle a case like mine."

• In "Utopia Road," a American Indian exorcist is invited to rid a neighborhood of the spirit of one Tom Royce, thought to be the cause of problems that really result from shoddy house and road building and from the despoiling of the land.

• In "The History of Riddles," finally, Frank and his wife, embarrassed in a ritual game by the cunning Samuelsons, vow to improve their skills before the next guests arrive.

Only self-directed actions save Hallman's suburbanites from the terrors besieging them.

Wonderfully out of kilter, this fine collection provides a comical, yet frightening view of the average man, who, when he "wakes on a spring morning in a wet season," thinks, "I am not what I used to be."

Anthony Bukoski's most recent short-story collections are "North of the Port" and "Twelve Below Zero: New and Expanded Edition." He lives and teaches in Superior, Wis.