The Stepman

Very funny, and so far from sentimental that its insights often have a whiff of cruelty, Margolis's portrait of a marriage at the breaking point is narrated by Abner Minsky, a poet and college writing instructor in upstate New York, who feels suffocated by his wife, job counselor Lora Sachsman. Their 10-year-marriage--which began as a hippie idyll in San Francisco after bohemian painter Lora's first husband abandoned her and their two kids--is now at a festering impasse. It's a duet of accusations, fights and mutual distrust. Abner feels like a stranger to Lora's rebellious teenage son and daughter, whom he lovingly raised, and even to their own two-year-old, Hannah. Al, Lora's ex, wants to come back into his children's lives, fueling the tension. From Lora's vantage, Abner is undemonstrative, unavailable, sarcastic, continually dissatisfied. A fight erupts, and Abner splits for the summer, back to old pals in California, where he contemplates divorce, works as a gardener, writes poetry fulfilling his ""Jewish/Blakean vision of the world riddled with ecstasy."" When the open road leads back to Lora, it's not at all a happy prodigal's return: Abner comes home to resume the messy negotiation of their lives, suffused as much by resignation as by contentedness. Both Abner and Lora are grandiose, but Margolis makes them vulnerable and, despite their flaws, sympathetic. He writes with rare insight into the dynamics of step-parenting and the divided loyalties that strain families. He also offers a witty take on the egoistic hazards of being a poet or pursuing any creative calling. (Nov.)