cover image Continental Drift

Continental Drift

Russell Banks. Ballantine Books, $5.99 (0pp) ISBN 978-0-345-33021-5

On the extravagant, shallow promises of his brother, Bob Dubois, 30, a burnt-out New Hampshire oil burner repairman, takes his family to Florida. There the Duboises meet their destiny in the form of a counterpoint familythat of Vanise Dorsinville, a woman who has fled Haiti with her infant and nephew for a better life in the U.S. PW praised Continental Drift as a ""vital, compelling novel.'' (April)