Daddy Boy

This fine novel transcends the poor little rich girl convention to show the truth behind the stereotype. Courtney Clayton, the youngest of four children and her father's favorite, shuttles between her divorced parents' wacky households. Daddy, an oil and real estate tycoon playboy, thrives on excess; ``Mother says we are all spoiled little Beverly Hills children.'' Trotting back and forth between starlets, servants, Dr. Feelgoods and assorted hangers-on, and a house haunted by needy, corrupt Southern relatives and other recipients of her mother's casual pity, Courtney carries the burden of her parents' conflicting expectations. Indulged, beloved, falsified by a father who denies that his baby needs an operation to repair a defective and disfiguring eyelid droop, and subject to her mother's charity for strangers and lack of feeling for her own children, while ex-wives, caretakers and unknown adults assure Courtney that her parents are saints, the child grows into ``a crazy built-up jigsaw monument to Daddy.'' This sad process is the stuff of a witty, bitter, authentic and original fiction, peopled with characters that come to vivid life. (Mar.)