Maiden Ape

Twelve-year-old Larry, following his mother's death, has retreated into a wounded, brooding silence, apparently irreconcilably alienated from his father Rube, a roving antiques dealer plying his trade in the Santa Clara Valley of California. Rube is given to addressing the dead woman through the intermediary of a ape-suit of the sort employed in carnivals. Into their peculiar lives comes Ana, 25, unwed, prominently pregnant; it will be her burden (and joy) to mediate between man and boy, and she ultimately effects a reconciliation, though, unhappily, only after Rube's death by drowning. Only then will the stricken boy cry out his father's name as he wets his pants and Ana presses him against her ""warm breasts,'' enjoining him to ``Cry, Larry, cry it out. You know how much I love you.'' The writing is appropriately sodden, the derivative sentimentality doggedly cloyingand the embarrassment total. (April)