For the Love of Robert E. Lee

After a promising opener--``Contrary to popular belief, I did grow up''--this first novel about a South Carolina teen coming of age in the late '60s tumbles downhill. Garnet Laney, a self-styled ``beatnik poetess,'' has loads of what others call personality, a quick comeback for every comment and a bum gimp/gimpy refers to the whole person leg. She's self-conscious, as befits a 16-year-old, but she has attitude to burn, and the boldness to punch out a cracker who has insulted a black. She's a born Southerner, too, who can't even recall ``hearing the name Robert E. Lee for the first time.'' And because hormones, pride and creative imagination are a heady brew at that age, she develops a potent crush on the ``Saviour of the South.'' Soon, chapters detailing Lee's education, military success and tragic end are alternating with Garnet's first-person exploits. But Harper isn't able to make her heroine truly interesting or her predicament involving: too many bookish youngsters have expended amorous tears on dead heroes for the syndrome to be as extraordinary as it's made out to be here. The narrative has too much telling and not enough showing; ? Harper tends to overinflate the dramatic moments, such as a concerned English teacher's after-hours talk and a grandmother's bout with dementia. The internal struggle that might fascinate in a character who is less of a caricature of a tormented teen never develops momentum because Harper's language, no matter how well deployed, remains lifeless. (June)