Cooper

Masters (Clemmons, Last Stands writes imaginative, perceptive and well-crafted prose. He deals here with people's dreams, flights of fancy that, in the case of one character, become reality. The story is seen through the eyes of Cooper, a budding novelist, obsessed with old airplanes and their pilots, who has infused his retarded but physically powerful son Hal with a similar fancy. His wife, Ruth, meanwhile, is so obsessed with her desire to become a respected poet that everything else in her life is overshadowed. But it is Cooperwho discovers the memoirs of an American mercenary pilot who fought in the Spanish Civil Warwhose writing career may take off. The veteran's stories make a pointed contrast with Cooper's life. But Masters's narrative stumbles; there are too many inconsequential episodes involving Cooper and not enough development of the veteran pilot's character. His letters as an old man to Cooper never fully gel with his memoirs as a young fighter to form a coherent personality. (May 18)