THE OTHER SIDE OF THE HILL

How does it feel to be a misfit in an executive job in a handbag factory when you'd like to be a musician? How does it feel to be married to a snappish, spoiled and selfish wife who fancies herself first as a musician- then as a writer, and is a failure at both? How does it feel to start an affair with a neurotic -- use it to resign from your job and to insist on divorce, only to fall out of love- and have the girl commit suicide? Well, Gerry Crofts tells all, from the man's side of the story- and completely fails to arouse a flicker of sympathy with any character in his story. The plots and locales run in counterpoint from the handbag factory (Bronkese and Brooklynese spelled out phonetically make the physical process of reading very laborious) where Gerry tries to make everyone happy- to his home, where he and his wife snap at each other- to his girl's apartment, or one or another roadhouse or bar or motel (yes, even that, anticlimactically) where he takes her. And it all winds up with Gerry supinely compromising, taking his job back ""temporarily"" taking his wife back ""temporarily"" and picking up just about where he started out before his feeble rebellion against domination. This isn't the sort of thing Robert Molloy does well.