Emotional Arithmetic

Veteran Canadian author Cohen's latest novel begins with Benjamin Winters visiting his mother, Melanie, in a Canadian sanatorium where she is recovering from a breakdown caused in part by her husband's philandering--and probably other stresses from her past. During WWII, Melanie was interred at Drancy, a housing complex on the outskirts of Paris used as a detention camp for Jews. Drancy operated as a way station; once there, having your name put on the wrong list meant relocation to a death camp. Now Melanie is about to sponsor noted Soviet dissident Jakob Bronski, whom she knew at Drancy. Accompanying Bronski to Canada is fellow Drancy survivor Christopher Lewis, a writer who has long carried a torch for Melanie. The pair's presence in her home revitalizes Melanie, but it also arouses unexpected reserves of jealousy in her husband. Cohen (Nadine) shifts the point of view from character to character with facility, and his lean, somewhat tart prose avoids melodrama when he describes the war years. Still, the novel is perhaps too low-key to elicit an emotional response from the reader. The three survivors live more in the past than in the present and, as characters, they never transcend the camp. And Benjamin comes off as a spare wheel; his narration bookends the story, but he contributes little to it, outside of having one shadowy affair. (Aug.)