DESCENT

Backwards, forwards not by much, and down, steadily down, Cathy reviews her unhappy life through fumes of Tanqueray gin from perhaps the too affectionate memory of her father on. Mostly however she's on that spiked wheel of sodden lust with Dudley, the husband she finally divorces, Mason his oldest friend, and sometimes both together. ""Shrinking, splitting, coupling, collapsing, swelling, stretching, dividing"" in a mindlessly ongoing present participle which seems to have no future at all: Mason who contributes certain spiritual overtones (""Jesus there fucking in bed with them"") commits suicide and at the end Dudley is on his knees begging for another chance. . . . Mr. Ellison (I'm Owen Harrison Harding; Master Prim) has written generally acceptable popular novels in the past now is just hustling--another kind of biological betrayal.