THE HERE AND NOW

Lost idealism is the subject of Easterbrook's second novel, an earnest but clumsy morality play about a troubled corporate lawyer who, on the eve of a major settlement, starts reliving scenes from his youth. Just as he's about to close a deal, Carter Morris is literally transported back to a classroom from his early childhood: after sitting through a nuclear attack drill, he returns home to find his father building a bomb shelter. Morris returns to the present and resumes negotiations, shaken by the incident, but more time trips follow, one taking him back to a military hospital where he tries to help his brother, Mack, who was injured in Vietnam. Morris's disappearances quickly compromise his role in the case, and he finds himself replaced as lead counsel by a libidinous young female colleague after he spurns her advances. The flashbacks turn romantic when Morris meets his eventual wife, Jayne Anne, in a series of scenes that replay their meeting at a college protest in the '60s and their life on a commune. The gimmick of presenting life lessons through a series of trips into the past seems worn out, and Easterbrook (This Magic Moment) compounds the problem by having Morris spew familiar rants about the excesses of the legal system and the material culture that has spawned it. (Dec. 11)

Forecast:A book that would otherwise get lost in the holiday shuffle may be helped by the fact that Easterbrook is an editor at both the Atlantic Monthly and the New Republic.