DINK'S BLUES

This unmistakably young first novel, which commands a certain curiosity but requires a certain indulgence, takes itself pretty seriously until the end-which leaves you with the notion that it may all have been ""the. biggest, whoppingest, most fantastic practical joke."" It deals with the events in a senior year on a southern campus-- with, inevitably, a good deal about sex and race-- and with a girl called Dink (Diane St. Clair) who has a definite unpredictable excitement about her; certainly for her roommate Sarah Lodge, who tells the story. This follows then Dink's claims (unverified) that she has Negro blood (an idea direct from the God she doesn't believe in); her great performance in a black version of Antigone; and the equally theatrical drama of her affair with a professor (married but presumably impotent), her pregnancy and disappearance. Then too there's the question of Sarah's feelings for Boots, a Negro student, to be resolved.... The novel has a certain touchy intensity but it doesn't quite make it.