Black Glass: A Sea Myth

This anguished first novel of unrequited passion on the high seas fails to live up to its echoes of Billy Budd and Querelle . Playwright and sculptor Edelson sets his story on board a civilian-manned Navy vessel en route to Vietnam in 1965. Michael Silver, a sensitive young man with artistic aspirations who has signed up to make and save some money, finds the merchant marine a miserable experience: sadistic superior officers and crew members instill terror in his every waking moment, and he is tormented by physical attraction to his virile bunkmates. His one friend, an able seaman named Bruce, makes it clear when Michael declares his love that the feeling is not reciprocated; Bruce's death throws Michael into a profound depression with ambiguous results. Promisingly operatic passions are poorly served by Edelson's abysmal writing and errors of grammar and syntax. Though atmospheric, Michael's story ultimately proves woefully derivative, inconclusive and banal. ( June )