SOMEBODY SING

Leopold's charming second novel continues the adventures of New York actor Sandy Bayard (Almost Like Being Here, 1988) as he wrestles with issues of race, love, and commitment. Sandy Bayard is finally making it as star of a TV series. Okay, it's a cable show, so he's only one third as famous as people on a network, but at least he isn't broke anymore. And his fame attracts women--a nice perk for someone who's said ""Never!"" to monogamy. The catch is, Sandy has also met Peg,. (While ""spending all those years trying not to get married, I was also looking for someone exactly like Peg, relieved when they weren't enough like her so I could go on not finding her and enjoying myself."") When the perfect Peg demands commitment, however, the two break up. But in the meantime, Ann Wilson, the black housekeeper who helped raise Sandy and nurse him through his childhood asthma attacks, is now in desperate need of open-heart surgery. Her health insurance won't cover it so Sandy marries her in order to include her on his own policy--a May-December, white-black wedding (with Ann in a wheelchair no less) that hardly raises an eyebrow in New York. While Ann convalesces in Sandy's apartment--and turns into a real wife in almost every way but the sexual--he begins to appreciate the pleasures of commitment and a day-in/day-out sort of love. Funny and tender, while the narrator's smart-alecky shtick prevents outright sentimentality.