Natalya, God's Messenger

This absorbing first novel by the translator of Isabel Allende's The House of the Spirits shares a sensibility with Allende's work, especially in its smooth intermingling of realism and the supernatural. Rita, daughter of Russian Jewish immigrants to America, is a riveter and political leftist whose job is threatened by the end of WW II. On a whim, she answers an ad for a fortuneteller, finding that a weekend's study of a palmistry book and a turban can transform her into Natalya, a Manhattan palmreader who bills herself as ``God's Messenger.'' But Rita's real change begins when, to her surprise, she realizes that she really can read the past and future in palms. She soon attracts crowds of followers and becomes convinced that she can uncover a great truth about peace in this century; though enthusiastically embraced by some, her mission offends her Marxist boyfriend, who leaves her. As years, then decades, pass, Rita and Natalya seem to become one person, whose conviction that she may have to save the country from itself grows ever stronger. Like Allende, Bogin has both a propensity for laying out the shape of events to come--which doesn't affect the story's suspense--and a concern with several generations of a family, but she establishes a sense of place and a voice that are entirely her own. Although the palmreader's revelations become predictable and the narrative sometimes sprawls, the large, multiethnic cast of characters is vivid, and an ingenious climax (with a surprising twist to a love affair) lends further spice to this more than promising debut. (Aug.)