SWIFTIE THE MAGICIAN

Gold's self-involved hero is a pale reverse image of Philip Roth's semi-autobiographical Jewish Hamlet: ""Why should I want to be a man at my age,"" soliloquizes Frank Curtis, ""when I've been content to be a boy for all these years?"" From his movie-of-the-week producer's chair on a Hollywood lot where he specializes in ""beaches, motorcycles, racial tolerance and such smaller issues"" he contemplates a serious film he will call ""Imperial Days"" -- a memoir of the Kennedy/Camelot/Beautiful People era when he was picked up by Swiftie Dixon, hip couturier to the international pop scene, slick queen of triviality, ""my conscience, my reminder, my female self."" Curtis is otherwise preoccupied with a Monkey-ish Sunset Strip chicklet who initiates him into bondage. He will never make that film, but, then, here's this book sputtering out sociological insights -- a laugh a line, along with shrinks, ""meaningful experiences,"" the Factory, gums, rock stars, PR agents, surfers, you name the '60's or '70's trend. . . . A brand-naming vivid and funny anecdotal rendering of superficiality and flamboyance, but Gold throws it all away.