“The Believers”—as in, the first of the eight stories, from which this collection takes its title—is a barnburner. A houseburner? That’s what literally happens in the end, when a couple from Jamaica try to disentangle themselves from the creepy church who sponsors them in Brooklyn and wants to marry off their daughter. The rest of the stories more or less live up to that bar, especially “The Iridescent Blue-Black Boy with Wings (After Márquez).” Off-kilter and vicious and great.