Kay Darling

In a collaborative effort inspired by a correspondence between the authors, Kay Darling explores the lives of three young and intermittently successful/happy characters. ``My friends' lives are either ridiculously successful or on the verge of tragedy. Or both. Like mine.'' It combines laugh-out-loud passages with more sober chapters in which each character does a little soul searching as only twenty-somethings can. Kay is trying to write a screenplay, but is more successful at coming up with excuses to ignore it. Her sister, Claire, is trying to figure out who she is and what she is supposed to be doing with her life. Will is a hilariously cynical gay actor/writer on the verge of a breakthrough. Each character struggles with ambiguous desires: Will sells Kay's half-finished script to gain a role for himself, and Kay is just as happy when she is fired from the project; Claire is torn between relief and longing when she gets the negative results of her pregnancy test; Will can't quite come to grips with success and a thieving but beautiful boyfriend. Letters, stream-of-consciousness monologues, lines from Kay's screenplay, messages on an answering machine, all come together to give perfect insight into each person. Sister-sister, man-man, man-woman relationships are examined with authenticity, and readers will experience vicariously these hip, chaotic lives. (Nov.)