cover image The Girls

The Girls

John Bowen. Plume Books, $7.95 (0pp) ISBN 978-0-452-26077-1

A lesbian relationship is threatened when one of the lovers has a brief affair with a gay man and bears his child. PW called Bowen's (The McGuffin) work ""an unqualified delight'' and remarked that ``Bowen rates superlatives for his alternately moving, frightening, hilarious novel andabove allfor the unsuspected, ultimate surprise.'' (May)