TESTIMONY AND DEMEANOR <i> By John Casey (Avon: $8.95) </i>

The characters in these stories by the National Book Award winner seem to skate over the surface of reality without ever touching it. In “A More Complete Cross-Section,” the narrator is so completely out of touch with his life that the external world becomes something he can’t quite believe in, like a bad film. The novella “Connaissance des Arts” is a sort of double Pygmalion story: As a stuffy college professor helps a vibrant young woman learn how to enjoy life, he discovers ways of sharing his emotions. Ironically, the title story is the least interesting of the collection: John Casey sets out to create a boring little man and his constipated milieu, and succeeds only too well--Mr. Pelham bores the reader as well as the narrator.