The characters seem not to know what they are doing, but the author does.

(Ballantine, $22.) This unnerving collection of stories concerns mothers who hit the road, fathers who fly the coop, a husband who keels over, a boy who steps behind a bush and is never seen again.

(Norton, paper, $13.) Two half-Filipino brothers can pass for white, but their mother cannot painful conflicts are in store for everybody in this novel's complex exploration of racism in California, starting in 1993, a year after the Rodney King riots.ĪMONG THE MISSING. Complications ensue, of course.ĪMERICAN SON.

(Houghton Mifflin, $24.) A nearly-mystery novel nicely constructed around a ghastly premise: Sophy, the narrator and protagonist, has found new love with Daniel in the last stage of her divorce from Will when Will is found dead in dreadful circumstances. (Doubleday, $21.) Spark at 82 can still manipulate characters so daringly their most improbable acts seem self-generated in this instance, two men who claim to be the murderous Lord Lucan (missing since 1974) gang up to blackmail a Paris psychiatrist who is as unlikely as they are.ĪLMOST. Her concern is with polarities of love and control, against thoughtless submission but much in favor of sacrifices in partnership.ĪIDING AND ABETTING. (Norton, $21.) Poems consistently feminist, domestic and devoted to the poet's native Ireland Boland argues that the sweet, icky stuff that passes for love poetry is no such thing. (Metropolitan/Holt, $23.) A Canadian writer's lyrical, alluring novel, a kind of gloss on the life of the Victorian photographer Julia Margaret Cameron the character at its heart, however, is a passionately self-educated housemaid from starving Ireland who serves as a model and as the prize in a family tug of war.ĪGAINST LOVE POETRY. (Carroll & Graf, $22.) Samuel Johnson and his friend Hester Thrale are the subjects of this novel as they appear to Hester's daughter her case of mother-daughter conflict urges her toward forgetfulness, not understanding.ĪFTERIMAGE. (Knopf, $26.) A smart, angry first novel full of beautiful surfaces, including that of the hero, if that's the word, who wanders through gay London seething with contempt for his milieu and hatred for the grown-ups who deformed his childhood.ĪCCORDING TO QUEENEY. The complete reviews of these books may be found at The New York Times on the Web: /books. The books are arranged alphabetically under genre headings. It is meant to suggest some of the high points in this year's fiction and poetry, nonfiction, children's books, mysteries and science fiction. This list has been selected from books reviewed since the Holiday Books issue of December 2000.

Joint Tenants by Deborah McClatchey