A USELESS DAY

Young, neurasthenic, self-involved, self-indulgent Suzanne spends a useless day in bed--brooding, fantasizing, resenting, recriminating, muffled under the sheet. Her very young children come home for lunch and there is a fracas with her little girl whom she beats up for little reason; her more malleable boy escapes with a scratched check-until supper. Her husband, tired, returns at eight to the fractious children and carrots (only), establishes security so that the day ends on a note of hope. . . . A novella--another sore soul chafing at the quotidian bind; more than a Saganesque sigh or a whimper, and always, acute and alive.