BILLIE'S GHOST

Casey Cooper, who narrates this maudlin first novel, hasn't worked in the year since his wife, Virginia, died. He's been living off life insurance, savings and pity checks from his in-laws and has carved out a hermitic life: he sleeps most of the day, wakes up late and spends his nights sitting in his backyard by the pool, drinking beer and listening to jazz—mostly Billie Holiday. So imagine his surprise when a hard-drinking nomadic jazz singer who looks and sounds just like Billie Holiday and who calls herself Eleanora materializes in his spare bedroom one night. In short order, Eleanora has Casey out of the house—shopping, canoeing at a nature preserve (where Eleanora falls into the water but doesn't get wet) and, eventually, heading to Miami, where she rescues Casey from a mugger. When Casey isn't being acted upon or transfixed by Eleanora, he retreats into soft-focus memories of Virginia. The drama (such as it is) reaches its height after a small fire Eleanora accidentally starts in the spare bedroom leads to a nearly fatal case of smoke poisoning for Casey's cat, Mashed Potatoes. Eleanora breathes new life into the cat by singing to it. More a whimsical reflection on learning to deal with grief than a novel, this is an occasionally touching but generally lackluster first outing for Hautmann. Agent, Wendy Schmalz. (Nov.)