Virtual Love

In her flawed first foray into fiction, therapist Offit, author of The Sexual Self and Night Thoughts: Reflections of a Sex Therapist , attempts to dramatize the lives of two analysts. Never having met, Aphra Zion and Marc Martell begin communicating in 1991 via computer E-mail. Some correspondence deals with their patients and their sexual disorders; the remainder looks back as far as 1942 to chronicle their respective pasts. They share guilt about their dead brothers and fathers, and both have stormy marriages: Marc wrestles with wife Trish's hatred; Aphra has an unfaithful husband whose clothing she slashes in a particularly cliched scene. Seeking solace, Aphra embarks on an affair, while Marc throws himself into New Age healing and finds a corrupt guru. Though the author cheats a bit by putting exposition too lengthy to be credible correspondence into chapters labeled ``PRIVATE FILE: Do not send,'' her E-mail format is an intriguing attempt to bring the epistolary novel into the computer age. Unfortunately, Offit has not created believable or compelling fiction. Aphra is self-indulgent, Marc unethical, and their family histories are generally banal. In addition, the book's sexual material seems forced, designed to titillate rather than illuminate. (Apr.)