Singing Into the Piano

In the brilliant opening scene of this thought-provoking novel from Art in America editor Mooney (Easy Travel to Other Planets), political attorney Andrew and his exhibitionist girlfriend Edith distract Mexican presidential candidate Santiago Diaz by their erotic play at a fund-raiser. Santiago and his wife, Mercedes, identify with the lovers, and Andrew and Edith find themselves the candidate's house guests during an explosive rift within his campaign over the plight of factory workers. Edith's exhibitionism and Andrew's amorous complicity keep them at the edge of trouble. Meanwhile, in the rain forest, one of Andrew's clients, a primatologist, is in danger from loggers with connections to Mexican political bosses--and to Andrew and Edith's friend James, an art dealer who has been laundering illicit logging money. James is in Mexico too, at the bidding of Marisa, a photographer and logging heiress who has persuaded Santiago, Mercedes, Andrew and Edith to pose together in another of the novel's many variations on the theme of our deep, animal need to expose ourselves. Mooney brings a deft, if sometimes too cerebral, touch to his task, juxtaposing human display (art-gallery patrons and power seekers) with the animal kind (a monkey run amok in the apartment of a primatologist's dead patroness, fighting cocks, yawping beasts in a public market). It adds up to an intelligent, amusing performance. (Mar.)