Minimax

Despite flashes of humor, Livia's ( Incidents Involving Mirth ) latest novel has abundant eccentricities that at times approach incomprehensibility. Unattached, unemployed and discouraged by the sense that her years of lesbian political correctness may all have been for naught, Minnie (whose alter ego Milly serves as the ``voice of Lesbian Nation'' to keep her in line) jets off from her London home to see her mother and sisters in Australia, with additional excursions to the U.S. to visit friends and accept an invitation to meet Natalie Barney, a famous lesbian author whose book introduced Minnie to the joys of opera. When Minnie returns to the bosom of her friendly if unorthodox family, she notes that its members have been touched by her mother's wealthy and eccentric employer R. Vivien. Eagerly anticipating her meeting with Natalie, Minnie begins to worry that the mysterious Vivien may somehow already have staked a claim on the author. Soon she also realizes why her mother makes the ideal Vivien employee: Beryl is ``constitutionally incapable of hearing the word `vampire.' '' (Nov.)