HEART CONDITIONS

A hapless editorial assistant marries her unfaithful boyfriend only to be betrayed again: a whiny New York tale by the author of the story collection Trying to Smile (1992). At 33, Alice Hammond has no great expectations of life, and so far her assumptions have proved correct. Obsessively attached to her mother as a young child, Alice lost both parents to a car accident when she was 13. Shipped off with her older sister, Laura, to live with relatives, Alice suffered resentment and boredom for years until her escape to Barnard and New York. A little over a decade later, Alice is working as a lowly, much put-upon editorial assistant, having spent her inheritance on supporting herself and her actor boyfriend—a boyfriend who now calls from an out-of-town engagement to announce that he's in love with another woman and Alice has six weeks to move out. Is Alice outraged? Certainly not- -she's accustomed to verbal abuse, and morosely submits to more as her sister criticizes her for a lack of assertiveness, her aunt suggests that she cut her hair, and the family at large decides that Alice should move in with her elderly grandmother and act as unpaid caregiver. Alice's role as martyr is assured when she discovers that she's not only been dumped—but she's pregnant. Her grandmother unexpectedly defends Alice's decision to keep the child. Sister Laura apologizes for her slurs, and even Nick, Alice's boyfriend, returns to claim his place as her husband. But it's too little too late—Alice's heart has migrated to Dan, an unassuming co-worker who provided moral support and baby equipment when no one else did. Dumping Nick, rescuing Gram from self- neglect, and setting up house with a new, sympathetic husband, Alice may expect to live happily after all. First-novelist Lewis's urban characters are original and well- drawn, but their incorrigible self-obsession quickly grows depressing and dull.