cover image New York Son

New York Son

Mike Feder. Crown Publishers, $16.95 (209pp) ISBN 978-0-517-56878-1

Feder hosts a weekly radio show on WBAI-FM in New York, from which these rambling first-person monologues were taken. Fragmentary, whining autobiography masquerading as fiction, these 11 tales of urban angst may appeal to his devoted fans, but they are not likely to win many converts. In sundry episodes, Feder's mother, a bundle of psychosomatic complaints, commits suicide; his tough-guy father takes him fishing; he flips out and gets admitted to a mental hospital; his girlfriend dumps him; he almost has an affair with a listener; his wife retches on their honeymoon in Antigua. Such adventures may play well on radio, but divorced from that medium's instant intimacy, its pregnant pauses and colloquial rhythms, his free-form ruminations on growing up, neurosis and sexual frustration are insipid and adolescent. The incidents drawn from his experiences as a Family Court parole officer and welfare caseworker are less egocentric than the rest of this recycled confessional. (Nov.)