Devotion: A Memoir

This evocative memoir covers a good deal of territory. Levine, the author of three books of poetry and A Guide to Writers' Homes in New England , begins with several well-crafted portraits of the relatives who defined her childhood. Raised during the 1940s in a Jewish family in New Jersey, she was fascinated by her grandmother Molly's ability to be creative even within her narrowly domestic life of cooking and caring for a family of six children. The author also effectively captures her father Joe's fear of her emerging teenaged sexuality, which changed him from a companion to an angry parent. Other reminiscences summon up Lev ine's college years, marked by several love affairs and a horrific abortion, as well as the time she spent in Italy with her husband while he battled a problem with alcohol. Particularly perceptive and engaging is an account of a 1977 interview that Levine conducted with novelist Jean Rhys. (Nov.)