FAIR GAME

When Dabney Wilhelm surrendered to the seduction of Charles Earse, it was as if a potential alcoholic had been given her first drink. Dabney's unsuspected and uninhibited sexuality was too much for the conservative Charles, who really took his pleasure in a sense of sin. Parker Peterson, who fell in love with Dabney at first sight, never gets more than a chance to look at her, although his daydreams are magnificent and Marcus Stein, a Reikian psychiatrist with the instincts of a rabbit, goes through a fine love/hate relationship with her. It's all very light and bright. It's La Ronde American style, with Dabney the irritated center of an interrupted California maypole dance. Mr. Kado, a Henry Miller-esque writer, draws all the characters together and mixes them up so nicely that Miss Hemley, a secretary of frighteningly dainty personal hygiene and a full stock of applicable platitudes, is the big winner, but Dabney, intelligent and full-blooded, is the memorable member of a novel which examines the idiot chance in romance. Watch for this--farcical screen possibilities.