LEFT TO THEMSELVES

A curiously aimless first novel that covers about a year in the lives of its emotionally inept, blue-collar Ohio characters, but feels as if it lasts a decade. Pretty Lucette, fresh out of high school and working as a drugstore clerk, meets Harry in a local bar. He's older, in his 30s, and known to be fond of women and booze. In short order, Harry and Lucette are a twosome and things get cozy—until Harry goes on a binge at just about the same time that Lucette discovers she's pregnant. Meanwhile, Harry's cousin Cynthia, living in her grandmother's house and working part-time as a cashier in a convenience store, allows her husband and son to move away and begin a new life as she clings to her old house and old dreams about Harry. How will all these people resolve their crises? ``Left to themselves,'' the publisher's blurb promises, ``they drift, disconnect.'' That they do, taking the novel with them. Pregnant Lucette moves away temporarily and returns with an unlikely new romance. Cynthia, abandoning the question of her marriage, becomes fixated on Lucette's imminent baby. And Harry, the eye of this unformed storm, just continues on his path. No high winds here, no torrents of remorse, nothing destroyed, nothing resolved, nothing much—a nameless, untropical depression. It's Grimm's own fairy tale, and they all lived hopelessly ever after.