Virgins and Other Endangered Species: A Memoir

This reminiscence by the wife of famed publisher Roger Straus takes as its inspiration the wonders of Proust's involuntary memory. Looking back over a long and, by this account, extremely stimulating and comfortable life, the author evokes an era in upper-class New York Jewish society that perhaps has all but passed, or at least has been transformed into something no longer of solace to her. In a tone that alternates between the proudly agnostic and the unabashedly romantic, Straus recalls family and family-circle members in fashionable settings--extended holidays at Saranac Lake; the family physician (a brother to Alfred Steiglitz), who had O'Keeffe paintings in his home; and evenings spent with writers in Paris cafes. Memoirs often face the problem of making personal memories vital and of interest to an unknown reader, and this one is no exception. But for a portrait of Jerzy Kosinksi, which is indelibly etched (``that swarthy face, with its hawk-like nose, the crest of hair, luxuriant and glossy as a raven's plumage springing from a peak on the low, broad forehead, the heavy black eyebrows, the small pointed ears, that body, thin as a razor blade''), Straus offers little that is memorable if you weren't there. (Aug.)