Suddenly a Mortal Splendor

Art succumbs to pretension in Blackburn's new novel, which traces the odyssey of Hungarian teen Pal Szabo, who flees his country after the failed 1956 revolt. In Austria, Pal meets a wealthy Briton, Grace, who informally adopts him and brings him to London. There, she introduces him to her estranged husband, muddle-headed pacifist John Woolpack III, and to Woolpack's lover, Bluejean, a teenaged girl. Pal runs away with Bluejean and marries her; together, they raise her child by Woolpack. In 1973, Pal, on leave from his current job in the U.S. Army, comes home to learn that Bluejean has gone off to a South American country named Pacifica (clearly modeled on Chile at the time of the Pinochet coup). Pal follows his wife only to find her body in a mine owned by Woolpack's trust, which Grace controls; further complications ensue. Blackburn (The Cold War of Kitty Pentecost) seems hell-bent on encapsulating 20 years of history here, awkwardly introducing key, ethnically diverse characters (Pal's Navajo friend, Virgil, as well as his new Chilean paramour) late in the narrative. The writing is undisciplined, jamming together fresh insights and soap-operatic plot devices, and while some may laud Blackburn's politically correct sentiments, even they will wince at the consequent cliches, like Virgil's statement that ``Ways of the white man have often been bitter on my tongue.'' (Jan.)