SEVENTH AVENUE

Seventh Avenue could become a landmark, like Peyton Place. And even while the title indicates it's about the garment industry (and as such, by the way, is strictly schmatas), most of its amperage is sex (""livid sex""), and all of it is generated by the prodigious masculinity of Jay Blackman. (""Jay sleeps with more women accidentally than most men do on purpose."" Or, less charitably, in his own words ""Living like a bum and behaving like a pig."") In any case, he's an unmenschionable character who when first met is good to his mother, his only finer instinct. Scrounging for meals on the lower East Side, he's rescued by Rhoda who gives him the dowry she's been saving, then her body (which she was also saving), and finally launches him via Modes Dress Shoppe to a 14th Street store to a nationwide network of outlets. On the last day of her ninth month, he leaves Rhoda on the floor, having belted her, to go to Eva whose life he also destroys. There's no real substitute for Jay: Rhoda takes to Bennies and a bookie; Eva the bottle and professionals who service married women. While Jay moves on and up with Terry from Boston who scraps her whole life for Jay and gives it up--bearing his child....The publishers will promote this but it probably won't even be necessary: it's got a riveting readability, lots of energy--viz. orgone, and more nubescent flesh than has been displayed in any showroom on Seventh Avenue.