Albion's Story

Australian writer Grenville's second novel, Lilian's Story, told of an obese, disturbed young woman who was raped by her father, then committed to a mental institution. A decade later, the author's fifth novel complements that earlier work by offering the father's autobiographical confessions. While not as remarkable as its predecessor, this is in its own way a tour de force. Albion Gidley Singer is an overweight, self-absorbed upper-class Australian who stuffs himself full of factual information (e.g., the number of bones in the human foot) in order to compensate for-or, perhaps, to ensure-the fact that he knows nothing about himself. Grenville goes back to Albion's repressed, fearful childhood to explain how he became such a monster. By the time he takes the reins of his father's stationery goods business, he is sexually warped and camouflages his insecurities with obnoxiousness. He marries ``flimsy, silly, timorous'' Norah and uses his firstborn, Lilian, as his psychic mirror, reflecting his own alternating feelings of self-love and self-loathing; at one point, he describes her as ``a piglet in a lace nightdress... a coarse parody of the feminine.'' Grenville's edgy, unblinking prose is arresting, and Albion's misogyny, philandering and violence result in a genuinely disturbing, if rather monotonic, read. Those who meet Albion here may find him too loathesome to contemplate; those who read the earlier book, however, will find this narrative mesmerizing. (Oct.)