HIDE FOX, AND ALL AFTER

When last seen in this first novel about a fourteen-year-old written at age fifteen by none other than -- Raul Sabas is seen leaving the precinct of the New York private school he hates laughing up at the sky ""Do you anticipate me?"" There are moments like this, of unanticipated, viz. fresh, experience which redeem this from the precariousness of the adolescent novel, the God knows precociously adolescent novel, since Raul-Rafael who wears black, mourning for his young life, can talk back via Balzac or Beckett. He reads a great deal. He also writes poetry. And he spends very little time at the school he's supposed to be attending since he really is too scared to leave it altogether (Yglesias did drop out) and cutting was his ""half-assed way of doing it."" In instant snatches you'll meet him -- on stage in the school production of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern which proves to be quite an ego trip (Raul's other ambition besides writing is acting); or smoking pot; or trying to screw up his courage to screw; etc., etc. At one point he is seen, by a friend, to be like Salinger's Seymour -- or he might suggest a '70's-styled catcher in the wry even if his ingrown sophistication diminishes his personal appeal. But he does have those moments and look up -- perhaps he's on his way somewhere.