ME AND THE ARCH KOOK PETULIA

Me"" is thirty-eight-year-old Archie Bollen, M.D., divorced, analyst attender, father of two and otherwise solid citizen. Petulia is...""was beautiful. All right. More beautiful than a number of other girls I know? No. Not more beautiful. Less beautiful. Yes. No. Intriguing. Yes. More intriguing than others? No. Yes. No. An idiot? Yes. Yes."" She is, indeed, disconcerting, launching her attack at a party, demanding an affair after marriage-- after she divorces her present husband of eight months. She camps on Archie's doorstep, entreats, beguiles, frustrates, enchants, seduces him and disappears leaving him with ""maybe"" fragments of herself--was she a will o' the wisp or a whore? But when she turns up again, a broken doll in the charity ward of his hospital, the pieces slowly start to cohere. She's been a Darling with soul (astute producers...they've cast Julie Christie in the forthcoming movie production), and there has been such delicate method to her madness. No dilettante touch here although the author lends a light, trenchant wit to the dialogue. The characters have life and lilt; their story is diverting and oddly affective. Haase's best.