DECADES

This is a novel about the '40's, the '50's, the '60's and the '70's which Mrs. Harris relentlessly differentiates as if centuries were involved -- sometimes foolishly too -- i.e. ""In the forties, no one talked abou sex."" Still this doesn't inhibit the earlier part of the action here (after all, the book is mostly about sex) in which magnetic if pushy Nat Baum marries Evelyn whose parents have enough money to make up for the fact that they didn't tell her much. She manages to hold on to him until he meets Barbara Roser -- some twenty years younger with a marriage and children behind her and the right jobs at her command all conveniently synchronized until she's up against Nat's reluctance to divorce Evelyn. Particularly since there's his daughter, Joy, too much his -- actually -- until her mother commits suicide and Joy begins to wonder about Evelyn's vulnerability and Nat's piggishness and her own incomplete education in an era free to do anything. . . . The publishers compare this to Lois Gould -- it's just as close to Jacqueline Susann -- and Mrs. Harris puts a tag on everything in sight -- whether it's a Christian Dior Art Deco shirt or Christian Dior nail polish -- Cuir. All these worldly imprimaturs lend a certain sophistication to what is essentially a sexy soap calculated to make those decades come back and go by in minutes.