DUNE HOUSE

A camouflaged world of conflicts muffled behind the silken screens of civilized small talk and unmemorable trivia"" -- this is that of six young people who take a summer house together at Bridgehampton (Long Island) for the weekends. Close to thirty, metropolitan at least by taste, casual, smart, they- along with some assorted acquaintances- spend a good bit of time sipping martinis and quipping about sex, so that their story is off to a rather desultory start. Only Nina, who is content to be nothing except a wife to Eric, a writer, has found any serenity; Liz, fashion editor on a smart magazine, leaves her mediocre, middlewestern husband to go off to Italy and a lover; and Benjy, a model, starts the summer with Fred, whom she has outgrown, agrees to marry someone else, but can't get over her love for a married man. By the book's end, the reader has gained some interest in Benjy and her misdirected affections- and by the summer's- a hurricane has added its devastation..... A first novel, the default here is that of the characters and the emptiness of their existence, but there are glossy to telling touches to attract a sophisticated feminine audience.