Tangled Up in Blue

The breezy, hedonistic mood of the typically Californian characters in this arresting, heartwrenching novel is shattered by the AIDS virus. Maggie Sullivan is an instructor at California Fitness in Santa Monica; her husband Daniel is an L.A. show-biz lawyer, and they're both delighted that she is pregnant. Then Maggie discovers that her husband is bisexual, was tested for AIDS and once had an affair with his best friend Crockett Miller who, it turns out, has ARC (AIDS-related complex). This discovery convulses the marriage and upsets an unusual triangle as Maggie copes with her anger, panic and her sense of betrayal by both Daniel and her close friend Crockett. Totally in control of his material, Duplechan ( Blackbird ) is equally sensitive in his frank portrayal of gay men responding to the AIDS epidemic as in his exploration of one women's emotional crisis. This moving, inspirational story commands attention whatever one's sexual orientation. (Mar.)