The Dangerous Husband

Veering skillfully between hilarity, suspense and surreal pathos, Shapiro's eagerly awaited second novel (after the highly praised Moondog, 1992) again demonstrates her witty take on the battle of the sexes. The narrator, whose wry and sophisticated voice is an ear-perfect blend of wisecracks, aper us and mounting frenzy, describes the dizzy rapture of falling in love, at 40, with a wealthy ex-sociology professor and would-be novelist, and their whirlwind marriage. She soon discovers that her new husband, Dennis, is a major klutz, constantly tripping, falling, spilling, colliding, bumping and lurching--and breaking objects and bones. His total misperception of spatial relationships begins to assume dangerous dimensions after he variously crushes his now-alarmed wife's toe with a hot skillet, wrenches her neck, drops her on a tile floor, breaks her arm by hugging her, gives her a concussion in circumstances she cannot describe, raises a giant hematoma by trodding on her leg and in general leaves her black and blue--and scared to death. Dennis's maladroitness always has a hilarious edge: on the verge of sex, he perches on a glass coffee table that predictably shatters: ""Daggers flew up and he landed in shards."" In fact, Dennis is more than a little strange; he never tells his bride that he's been married several times before, or discusses what became of his former wives. He keeps an albino frog in a bucket in the basement, lavishes affection on a hyper dog who pees on the rug, and has driven his neurotic cat into permanent hiding. ""This was the kind of person my husband was: strange, loving, lethal,"" the narrator muses, gradually realizing that to prevent her own accidental mutilated demise, Dennis ""really needed to be dead."" When she engages a suave and sexy hit man (he's also a novelist) to do the deed, the narrative moves into beautifully controlled farce. The reader springs through this book in a state of giddy anticipation and nervous laughter. Even the narrator's occupation adds an edge to the clever premise--she is a photographer obsessed with capturing reality, but trapped in a surreal situation. Shapiro takes risks here, but she acquits herself triumphantly. Author tour. (Sept.)