A TIME TO DANCE

Sullivan (Sojourn of a Stranger, not reviewed) has a wry take on just about everything, from academia to marriage to suicide, but he delivers it gently. This is really two stories: one about a couple just forming, and the other about a couple reaching the end. The latter, 89-year- old novelist Max and his 86-year-old wife, Bunnie, have a tortured union. Both recall all the slights suffered at each others' hands. They were rabidly unfaithful to each other and once separated, Bunnie going to Italy for a while to decide whether or not they could—and should—work things out. When Max visited her in Italy and she noticed that he was genuflecting in front of religious art, he admitted he had returned to the Catholic faith in her absence because ``it got me out of the house.'' The ensuing dialogue is a hilarious Ping-Pong match. The novel opens with Bunnie's first stroke. After the stroke, Bunnie's nephew Julien comes to live with the couple; and when Bunnie has another stroke and is hospitalized, he takes up with a young nurse named Shannon. These two have their own problems—mostly due to Shannon's drugged past and the loss of her best friend in a car accident—although they don't quite have the same flair in working them out as their older doppelgÑngers. It's surprising and enjoyable to find so much action in a novel that relies so heavily on its characters' memories. Not every scene here is perfect: When Max reminisces about a prostitute known as Miss Baby and then tries to track her down by calling various escort services and asking for her, it's uncomfortably clear what is to come; Shannon resists Julien strongly, and then does an abrupt turn-around and purposely becomes pregnant with his child. Still, as dismal as much of the subject may sound—aging, illness, depression—the tone is antic, as Max and Bunnie grow old gracelessly, but entertainingly. Sullivan delivers that rarity, black comedy without bitterness.