As a teenager, novelist Mabel Fleish fell in love with Beauregard Barbon, a weak 16-year-old who, until his mysterious suicide, spent his spare time mutilating small animals and studying to be a warlock. Mabel is so obsessed with Beau's memory that, as an adult, she carried him into fictional manhood in her first novel, Bone-about a woman involved in a sadomasochistic affair with a ``demonic character'' based on the beloved Beau. As this novel opens, it's 20 years later, and Mabel-married and living in a N.Y. college town-receives a threatening letter from someone she believes is the long-dead Beau. Golub's (Secret Correspondences) tedious tale turns repellent as Mabel is kidnapped by a former lover who claims she stole his-not Beau's-life for Bone. Hauling Mabel off to a mountain hut, he strings her up in a harness and hood and takes his revenge with tortures that include a saddle and the rendition of some Edgar Allen Poe. Meanwhile, Mabel's professor husband, Percival Furnival, and his aging colleague, Rufus Wutzl, mount a hunt for the missing object of both their affections. And albino reporter and obituary writer Herm Kwestral thinks he's hot on the trail of the possibly non-deceased Beau. Home alone, Mabel's 11-year-old daughter Ana enjoys acting out sexual dominance fantasies with Ken and Barbie. Annoying rather than successfully satirical, Golub's attempts at a black-humored mystery consistently misfire. (Feb.)
Mabel Fleish, author of a broodingly erotic novel, is haunted by the years-ago drowning death of her baby son, the years-ago suicide of her 16-year-old first love, the erratic behavior of her young daughter, and various characters from her book. Yes, she does see a psychiatrist, but Dr. Xavier only feeds the confusion. Obsessed with death, love, and sex, hemmed in by people entranced with her book, and threatened by disturbing letters, she questions whether the suicide ever occurred. Rather bizarre content, then, difficult to classify and challenging to read, but oddly balanced and entertaining.
