MILK

Upon learning of her pregnancy, Theodora ("Theo") Mapes, a freelance catalogue copywriter, flees her husband, Jackson, and their Colorado home for Southern California and her family roots. The twin traumas of her childhood—the death of an infant sister and her mother's suicide when Theo was seven years old—linger with an almost physical presence, incessantly invading her thoughts and imprinting themselves on the novel's action. Still reeling emotionally, she starts an affair with Gregg, an old boyfriend, and attempts to decipher the reasons for her mother's suicide. Theo finds her father and brother taciturn on the subject, both having buried the tragedy beneath the trappings of financial success and new families. But Theo obsesses over her barely remembered mother, discovering medical records and personal letters that gradually reveal a history of intergenerational incest. Hammond, the author of Breathe Something Nice, a collection of stories, paints in broad, plain strokes, assiduously avoiding sentimentality. However, Theo is a woman flooded with emotion; she lives in a psychologically tumultuous state. Hammond relies primarily on dialogue to convey this feeling; she also uses flashbacks to fill in some of the blanks. The writing achieves a solid if unspectacular level that just can't convey the intended emotional impact of the narrative. The novel, ambitious in scope, suffers mainly from this dichotomy between plot and voice, as well as thinly drawn male characters (Gregg and Jackson remain little more than ciphers). What could have been an intriguing exploration of family emerges as a rather ordinary story with its potential unfulfilled. Agent, Kit Ward. (Aug.)