A L S O+T O D A Y Penguin Soup for the Soul Tom Tomorrow's new book of cartoons (09/25/98) F E A T U R E The King of death By Andrew O'Hehir Andrew O'Hehir peers into the terrifying world of one of our most important writers -- and recommends five Stephen King novels for newcomers Bag of Bones Reviewed by Andrew O'Hehir Sex, death, shambling ghosts -- this is Stephen King territory, all right. But this tale of a tortured romance novelist is a surprisingly mature, nuanced work The Salon Interview: Stephen King By Andrew O'Hehir The horror master on the latent violence of males, childhood terror and an "odious little man" named Kenneth Starr T A B L E+T A L K Kurt Vonnegut: Aging hippie or brilliant satirist? Discuss the author and his work in the Books area of Table Talk B O O K C A S E A new service for book lovers R E C E N T L Y Ghost Town By Robert Coover Fiction (09/24/98) Apples By Frank Browning Nonfiction (09/23/98) We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families By Philip Gourevitch Nonfiction (09/22/98) Model Behavior By Jay McInerney Fiction (09/21/98) No Safe Place By Richard North Patterson Fiction (09/18/98) - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - SEARCH REVIEWS BY: title of book author publisher reviewer - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -		---------- (    D  e  a  t  h    i  n     s  u  m  m  e  r   ) ----------------------------------------- BY WILLIAM TREVOR VIKING FICTION 240 PAGES BY DAN CRYER | Like a good mystery, "Death in Summer" is a tease, coyly nudging readers away from what's really about to happen. But since its author is William Trevor, the renowned Anglo-Irish master of both story and novel, the book is a lot more -- a stark rendering of English class divisions and a compelling dramatization of sudden, violent eruptions in the lives of those too timid to venture beyond tidy safe harbors. At the heart of this novel and "Felicia's Journey," Trevor's previous one, are young women of little education and lesser means struggling to make their way in an indifferent world. Early on, we understood that Felicia was a doomed victim. Pettie of "Death in Summer," a shoplifting runaway from a squalid orphanage, seems too cunning, energetic and resourceful for that fate. But now she's out of a job and the rent is overdue. Maybe she can land that nanny job out in the Essex countryside at Quincunx House, where Thaddeus Davenant's wife has just died, leaving behind a baby daughter. It's too bad Pettie isn't allowed to tell this story. Though Trevor does shift back and forth between her and Thaddeus, it's this pale, tight-lipped trimmer who gets most of the attention. Thaddeus does have a certain understated edge; while still single, he once carried on with a married woman, and his match with the plain but well-to-do Letitia Iveson underscored a quietly creepy deviousness. But instead of sliding into iniquity, the melancholy Thaddeus only tends his garden. To nearly every other character, Trevor gives a bracing humanity. Maidment is the nosy butler, rummaging through rooms and rumors like a gossip columnist. Albert is Pettie's worrywart pal, a young man with a big heart and endless curiosity. Dot Ferry is Thaddeus' conniving and pathetic former lover. Only Thaddeus' mother-in-law, Mrs. Iveson, seems more of an idea of upper-crust respectability than a fully fleshed-out human being. Above all, what makes these characters interesting, even the tepid Thaddeus, is the author's foreboding Olympian vision. The great god Inertia rules all. Upstairs or downstairs, these contemporary Britons seem to shuffle along, ever prey to overwhelming, unseen forces. Bad things happen to good people, all right, but Trevor is eager to underscore the vulnerability of everyone, good or bad. Letitia's death (in a cycling accident) is but the first of several. In very different ways, Pettie and Thaddeus are strangers to love. Pettie has suffered the mind-warping manipulations of a child molester. Thaddeus never had much of a father, never opened himself to love's vulnerability. Patiently, quietly, Trevor nudges these two toward the inevitable collision. The tension is palpable, the insight into character shrewd, the prose slyly seductive. SALON | Sept. 25, 1998 Dan Cryer, a book critic for Newsday, lives in New York. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - B Y_.T H E_.S A M E_.A U T H O R After Rain Short stories, set in rural Ireland, by a writer with a genius for getting at the texture of parched lives. Reviewed by Charles Taylor Oct. 21, 1996