cover image Diary of an Affair

Diary of an Affair

Jeannie Sakol. Dutton Books, $17.95 (235pp) ISBN 978-1-55611-136-5

It's love on the run for Liza and Dan, who meet on the jogging trail around Central Park's reservoir. Liza is a 32-year-old up-and-coming business tycoon; Dan, a travel exec and married father of two, ``filled with a yearning for something he could not define.'' Told in short, first-person reports by the major players (Liza, Dan, Dan's wife and sometimes Liza's mother), this trite domestic drama meanders through the protagonists' banal thought processes. Liza has bouts of conflict between love and work; Dan has attacks of conscience; and Maggie struggles to find herself and save her marriage. Parts of this novel appeared in New Woman magazine and Sakol has two previous nonfiction books to her credit. But these predictable characters in their cliched dilemmas don't work up enough suds for even a good soap opera. (July)