cover image Love, Sex, and Money

Love, Sex, and Money

Sharleen Cooper Cohen. Dutton Books, $19.95 (564pp) ISBN 978-0-525-24665-7

Cohen's entertaining, if somewhat farfetched, saga of three friends who attended college at Berkeley begins in 1962 and covers a quarter century of their shared traumas and victories. Pam Weymouth longs to go into business with her wealthy father, who owns a successful construction company. He and his haughty second wife cruelly rebuff Pam, however, and she silently vows vegeance. To earn money to launch a real-estate career, Pam finds work as a model. She also begins an ill-fated affair with Charles Meroni, a charismatic underworld figure with ties to her father's company. Meanwhile, artist Trish Baldwin copes with marriage to Arthur Matalon, her former painting teacher. Conventional, middle-class Trish can't resist his combination of counterculture interests and uninhibited sexuality. Even so, Arthur's jealousy of her talent threatens their relationship, as do Trish's drug habit and their baby's death. Hillary Markus revels in peaceful domesticity with her husband and children, yet her determination to halt the pollution caused by a local chemical-storage company jeopardizes them all. Despite generous helpings of soap-opera pathos and remarkable coincidences, Cohen (Marital Affairs) devises a series of tensely dramatic situations that will keep readers wholly engrossed. (July)