MINOR GODS

Good intentions aside, it's hard to say what the real purpose of Mr. Townley's first novel is, however seriously he takes life. Part of it has to do with fifteen (actually more) workers who die of a carcinogenic agent in a Philadelphia chemical company. The rest of it alternates between three very different brothers--one is the PR man for the company, one will write the expose of it. The third is an artistic boy, brain-damaged in an accident at twelve, now pursuing all kinds of Kosmic (sic) principles such as ""spiritual sex-change of the soul"" before he lets go of his bead altogether. To make bad matters worse, Townley's style is a real ""upsetment"" unless you want to think of a woman as ""a hunk of torpid wax.