Transferences (C)

Wanda North is an ambitious therapisticy, determined and, as she would describe it, highly repressed. Tim Jinks is an ex-patient who writes her deranged letters about his obsessive love for her. Robert Martin is the doltish mama's boy Wanda married. They form a sick triangle of unfulfilled fantasies and clashing love, and together they fall into ugly collapse. Of the three, Jinks is the craziest and most compelling. His letters are filled with brilliant sarcasm, rage, violence and tenderness and expose the dark side of both humanity and psychotherapy. The weak link here is Wanda herself, who never emerges as a woman worthy of Jinks's bizarre attention. Despite a preponderance of technical terms, Twiggs's second novel is written with graceful style and sharp humor. (October)