GIRLS IN THEIR MARRIED BLISS

Up to London from the Irish bogs, here are the Country Girls again, Kate Brady and Baba Durack, over a ""few gloomy gin fizzes...bemoaning the fact that nothing would ever improve, that we'd die the way we were--enough to eat, married, dissatisfied."" This sets the tone of voice for Edna O'Brien's bawdy, knowing, tart-tongued novel which is the third in the trilogy which began with The Lonely Girl who charmed many viewers on the screen as The Girl with Green Eyes. Now, a little older, no better, there's Kate who married Eugene (""Question of having to"") who proves to be piously, dourly unforgiving after her few misspent moments with another man. And Baba has married a rich, crude type who is a big spender (not in bed) so that when a rowdy romp leaves her black and blue as well as pregnant, there can be no question of his cuckoldry. A castor oil and hot bath ordeal does not brighten her prospects: ""Twins, two of each"" as she snappishly says to Kate who also has nothing very hopeful in view, just another night with another man....A mixed pleasure, this is at times a lovely, larky book and in others, there are sad spot touches closing with the rueful envoi.