Flame

In this novel by the author of Love Crazy, characters are obsessed with sex and power. Action takes place from the 1930s to the present, and not a minute is wasted. By the third page, Buck Herman, fledgling songwriter and self-described Romeo, has seduced a successful older woman, and the doors to Hollywood have opened to him. There, he makes life miserable for an orchestra of studio musicians and their families, including the sensitive violinist Mischa Kahn, Kahn's grasping wife Wanda and their son Nick. Buck seduces Wanda, then casts aside both husband and wife. The story's focus shifts to Nick. Filing Herman away as unfinished business, Nick attends Harvard, then returns to Hollywood a psychiatrist. His life intertwines with a host of characters, each more rapacious and promiscuous than the last (including, of course, Buck Herman). While the pace is fast, Feiffer's writing is careless, full of uneven characterizations, confusing leaps in time and place, and syntactic howlers. Even readers who ignore these distractions for the sake of frequent, athletic sex will probably be dumbfounded by a conclusion so improbable that it borders on farce. Major ad/promo. (September 19)