Two Against One

Edward Lasco gets a surprise on his 40th birthday: his wife Elise, who left him six months before to become an independent woman, comes home . . . with her boyfriend Roscoe. But they're not sleeping together, Elise insists, because Roscoe, an affable psycholinguist, is still mourning his wife, who died in a car crash. Should Edward accept the odd threesome Elise wants to impose on him? Should he try to win her back? He still loves her, though the erotic embers have long since died. Or should he take up with his ex-girlfriend Kinta, a hypersexed fanatic who suddenly reappears? The reader doesn't much care because these self-obsessed characters with their big libidos are a bore. Novelist/short-story writer Barthelme ( Second Marriage , Moon Deluxe ) sets this overwritten narrative in a faceless new South of malls and video stores. There's a lot of talk about sex, but not much happens, sexually or otherwise. (October)