STEREOPTICON

Why did Audrey Mortimer, wife of eleven years, mother of three, full of worthwhile projects (read time-fillers), with ""lots of things on her mind"" (read any moment it might split) go home with an eighteen-year-old delinquent picked up in Central Park to be slashed to bits? This invites too many comparisons with Judith Rossner's Looking for Mr. Goodbar (p. 402) to be overlooked. Let it just be said that this is more of a number and less of a book, phasing in and out of the congested head of Audrey during the day the daughter of her best friend dies of cancer. In the first part you'll walk that thin line between what Audrey remembers, fantasizes, does--most of it death-directed--until. . . . The second part consists of the obits, autopsy, newspaper clippings, official eulogy, grand jury indictment and testimony of Ramon Ismael Garcia who's been working the territory successfully for a long time (two to three muggings an hour) before he met Audrey. You'll read it as another tacit commentary on all those Audrey Mortimers who come to realize ""there ain't no Guinevere,"" fastened with a hook and eye of curiosity and horror.