Gardens

Prado's debut suffers from amateurish dialogue, preening characters and a weak plot. Kate is 40-ish, a reasonably successful painter, snug in a fine Los Angeles house but upset because her cherished 22-year-old daughter Sheila wants to move out. Sheila keeps her lover Mac dangling while she tries to decide on a life's work and indulges in a sexual interlude with a former beau. Her long-widowed maternal grandmother, Audrey, is retiring after a notable career in marketing. Kate's husband Alex suffers emotionally from his failures as an artist. Much purple prose describes each person's grasping for a handle to the future. They all depend for advice on the ghost of Alex's grandfather, who leaves them to themselves, finallya bit of foolishness that matches the efforts of Kate and Sheila to practice witchery in a search for guidance. November 18