Bones

In this first novel, sometimes unfocused if ambitious, Lorin Hood, a young artist transplanted from his Mormon home in Utah to the coffeehouses of Los Angeles, uses his vivid imagination to translate visions and memories into subject matter for his paintings. While his flights of fancy are detailed and interesting, it's often difficult to discern the relevance of some of the plot, and the major changes in Lorin's life seem to improve his mystic abilities while disconcertingly handicapping his ability to deal with reality. The breakup of his romance with a live-in girlfriend sends him back to his family just long enough to be assigned to a two-year stint as a missionary in Michigan. Rambling passages of daydreams and out-of-body experiences parallel the drawn-out account of a young couple's conversion to Mormonism and Lorin's subsequent involvement with the wife. Relieved of his missionary duties, he returns to L.A., accompanied by his demons. Here at last the relation beween Lorin's religion and his art becomes clearer. The ``creeping malaise'' Lorin has felt for months becomes a way of life, and he remains isolated within his imagination, though able to succeed with his art. The price of this success--loss of the past and a lonely future--seems high. (Sept.)