Give My Heart Ease

This awkwardly written first novel explores the war between the sexes, heightened by vivid scenes of domestic violence. Justine, a young American ballet dancer, leaves her touring company and decamps to Oxford to be near Roy, her former philosopher professor. She is a sex junkie, turned on by Roy's sadistic violence. When Justine finds she is pregnant, they marry, Addie, their son, becomes the pivotal focus of their relationship. After Roy takes a position at Harvard, they move back to the States, but by then their marriage has further deteriorated. On vacation in the Caribbean, Justine falls in love with Moses, a simple local man for whom she abandons her family. Later, Justine, again pregnant, returns to Roy--whose eyes are filled with ``passionate tenderness'' at her homecoming, sparing the reader from a continuation of their emotionally charged saga. (Sept.)