Strickland: A Romance

Lies that pervade personal lives and the body politic come under scrutiny in Masters's novel of protracted midlife crisis. Prime-time TV announcer Carrol Strickland, recently widowed, is tired of spoon-feeding ``the evening's euphemisms'' to a ``nation of junkies who only want a quick fix.'' Guilt-ridden over his media role in Vietnam, where he rubbed elbows with JFK's top brass, this Kansas farmer's son, now a fixture of the Eastern establishment, is having an affair with demure Robin Endicott, a Vassar dropout and Connecticut artist young enough to be his daughter. But her genteel veneer is a pose--she uses heroin, steals and turns tricks. Through flashbacks we learn that Strickland's snobbish wife was sexually abused by her schoolmaster father. The third volume in Masters's Harlem Valley Trio ( Cooper ) set in upstate New York, this dyspeptic ramble scores points about the costs of deception, willful innocence and sexual obsession. (Nov.)