ANY WOMAN'S BLUES

Jong reprises heroine Isadora Wing (Fear of Flying How to Save Your Own Life, Parachutes and Kisses) in this graphic but curiously unerotic tale of an artist obsessed with a young lover. Shades of Earhart. When last seen, famous writer Isadora Wing is piloting a single-engined plane over the South Pacific. Since she's missing and presumed dead, a scholarly feminist edits and publishes her last novel, Any Woman's Blues. It's the story of celebrated artist Leila Sand, a woman ""in the grip of an obsession"" with hunky Dart Donegal, 14 years her junior. ""Let me tell you about his cock,"" says Leila--and, yes, does she ever. When she's not slavishly worshipping Dart's ""demonic prong"" she gets her kicks out of letting him beat her with a riding crop. Leila has other problems as well, mainly the fact that she's an alcoholic. She joins AA and persuades Dart to do so too--but sobriety literally unmans him, and he jumps off the wagon and into the arms of a pretty blonde. Devastated, Leila has an affair with Danny Doland, a rich Texas tycoon who can manage things only while watching dirty videos; then it's off to New York's downtown scene, where she watches far-out performance art and becomes a disciple of dominatrix Madame Ada. But she soon becomes tired of vengefully whipping men and ends up in Italy, having a soothing affair with a handsome architect. In an Afterword, Isadora Wing appears--not, sadly, dead--and explains the meaning of the novel: ""We go on revealing our hearts in the hope that they may never stop beating."" Clumsy, pretentious, humorless, predictable.