Cheyney Fox

The art orbit forms the backdrop of this shallow novel about shallow jet-setters. But though Andy Warhol himself figures in the plot (``Make me a star,'' he begs art dealer Cheyney), there's little sense of what it's like inside that closed community. When the tale opens in 1959, Cheyney Fox has it all: a handsome artist/lover due in from Europe and her own New York City gallery. But the lover turns out to be selfish and faithless; and she is abandoned by her business partner and bankrupted by an unscrupulous accountant. Cheyney moves to Greece, where she overcomes her losses with the help of friends and, unknown to her, of Kurt Walbrook, a mysterious, high-powered art dealer who wants to marry her. We follow Cheyney through years of name-dropping, pants-dropping and continent-hopping. Globe-trotting journalist Grant Madigan is dragged in for some of the periodic bedroom scenes that punctuate the text without enhancing it. A bland subplot involving stolen artwork in the hands of ex-Nazis cannot give this story any depth. Latow wrote White Moon, Black Sea. (July)