LOVE AND WORK

Self (?) portrait of an artist--actually a teacher--as a youngish man threatened by the dependency, the tyranny, of people and things in a raffler porous, pale grey area somewhere between reverie and reality. . . . Encroached on by the memory of his father's death, the actuality of his wife's reproachful presence (she's childless, workless and work alone is liberating), by a prophetic dream followed by his mother's sudden death and another fortuitous accident, Thomas Eborn tries to grapple with his essay on Love and Work which reveals his own lacunae implemented by Jane's charge of ""easy lies."" A recessive lifeline in a familiar limbo of uncertainty, loss, failure--none of this strengthens the book which is no more than a novella to begin with. But there are a few low frequency recognitions for everyone.