As Good as It Gets

Wed in the innocent early '60s, Hallie and Ted Bennett experience the vicissitudes of married life in a trite novel whose central question is whether their love will endure as they both mature. Beginning with an insipid scene of wedding-night jitters, Greber ( Mendocino ) early on sledgehammers her message that marriage takes work. She traces the Bennetts' lives over three decades, from Boston to Silicon Valley and across the changing face of American culture. The social and sexual storms of the '60s and '70s and the materialism of the go-go '80s test the couple's commitment, which seems prehistoric to their friends. Hallie's social conscience allows the introduction of such topics as the Vietnam War, feminism and AIDS but ruminating on wedded bliss--or its lack--remains her principal occupation: ``The whole business was infinitely more complex than she'd suspected.'' When Hallie gets her law degree, her specialty is, of course, divorce. Flaws and compromise may be as good as marriage gets, but readers expect more from a book. (May)