IF YOU LOVE ME, LET ME GO

A sequel to The Swallow's Song (p. 599, J-145) that's even more inane than the original--a Fifties cast spouting Seventies cliches in a Twenties setting. Allison Standish returns from her pivotal summer with the uppercrusty Farradays to smalltown New Jersey, intent on being part of the high school crowd--she's now got modish trimmings on her dresses. Sure enough, Pookie and the others seem to accept her and then Lisa Farraday shows up too: her parents are in the midst of a scandalous divorce and Allison's homey home is just the antidote. Allison seems to have it made but all these other threads keep tripping her up: her Gran, now living with them, is deteriorating rapidly; her Dad's store is failing too; Harvard brother Jerry is indifferent to the family's stresses and flunking out; and an Italian Catholic orderly at Gran's hospital makes a play for Allison's Episcopalian sympathies. All those loose ends get tied up, of course, but it takes some doing--much too much. And meanwhile, a reader must suffer through lines like ""The auditorium rocked with mirth"" or (Lisa to Allison, never mind the circumstances) ""If you do love me, let me grow."" Let it go.