THE BROWNSTONE HOUSE OF NERO WOLFE

For only the most fanatical and nostalgic of Rex Stout fans: a fragmented whimsy, consisting largely of excerpts from Nero Wolfe mysteries, in which the retired Archie Goodwin reminisces--and offers a guided, diagrammed, room-by-room tour of the old Wolfe residence. He reveals that the actual location of the brownstone was East 22nd St., not West 35th. He explains some Stout-canon discrepancies about dÉcor and measurements and details. (""Why did Wolfe move upstairs? He was having his bedroom on the second floor redone! He was camping out on the third floor."") He provides a bit of fanciful background material on the series characters--whose traits he recalls. He attacks the ""abominable floor plan"" in William S. Baring-Gould's Nero Wolfe of West Thirty-Fifth Street. And, in a jarring digression, he reprints a letter from the retired Nero Wolfe himself: an hysterical attack on gay liberation (""They beg not to be arrested for soliciting and pandering, but 'Oh, please, officer, arrest that man. He struck me when I fondled his fly' ""), the ""hermaphroditic Media,"" and the new use of the word ""gay."" (""What could be less gay than possessing the physique of a man, but the psychic response of a woman?"") A chatty trivia trifle, then, with one bizarre, off-putting surprise.