FEAR WITHOUT CHILDBIRTH

Dated, dehydrated, tin-plated humor--as the poor woman's Erma Bombeck slufts, for no apparent reason, from non-fiction diddling to fictional waste paper. The plot device of someone inheriting a million dollars--here, narrator Irene Kampen's suburban surrogate mommeleh, Belle Thompson--opens the way for formula jokings about faggot interior decorators, kids hooked on Eastern religion, artsy avant-garde theater, primal scream therapy, rebellious ethnic domestics, and chauvinistic-piggy country clubs. And Irene's job in the ""author-promotion game"" gives her a chance to ramble on about booking writers on talk shows (""Always have extra copy of client's book with you because you never know"")--and to introduce Elaine Eckel, author of Prune Whips and Oyster Patties: An Erotic Cookbook. Ha. Ha. Blah.