Animals Waltz

In this remarkably assured first novel, which won the 1994 Jewish Book Award for fiction, Toronto Globe and Mail poetry critic Fagan (author of two story collections) proves himself a wonderful writer with a rare comic gift. At age 31, college dropout Sheila Hersh leads a schizoid existence. By day, as advertising copywriter in her father's Toronto store, Hersh's House of Mattresses, she is the dutiful Jewish daughter. At night, she frequents a trendy club-hopping scene; she has even acted nude in an avant-garde film, though she now wants to halt its premiere. Sheila has other worries as well: the store is losing money, her father has irrational, violent outbursts and his new lady friend may be a gold digger. Then Sheila becomes obsessed with one of her deceased mother's possessions-a book of poems by one Charlotte Reissmann, an obscure Jewish Viennese pianist who, in 1938, at age 23, drowned in a canal. Sheila translates Charlotte's intense lyrics, full of dark foreboding, from the German (these ``translations,'' which preface each chapter, are stunning), but to unlock the mystery of Charlotte's death-and to come to terms with her own mother's death-she and her father set off for Vienna. This latter portion of the narrative is a letdown, featuring too many neat coincidences as father and daughter each find new love. Even so, this engaging and haunting novel will make readers laugh and cry. (Jan.)