PASSING STRANGE

This uneven debut novel has a terrific idea going for it, but it runs out of steam in a windup that's supposed to be poignant but is merely confusing. The first-person narrator, Claudia Isham, is an ugly duckling teenager growing up in Vermont whose sense of herself is completely governed by her awkward appearance. But her oddity and passion captivate Dan, a young New Yorker from a wealthy family, who marries her and then persuades her to have major cosmetic surgery. Claudia's altered appearance galvanizes her life, and MacLeod brilliantly illuminates the transformation in a woman's personality that can result from the unexpected arrival of attractiveness. When Claudia and Dan move down to the Carolinas for his salesman's job, the strange atmosphere of the contemporary South is evoked with great subtlety and keen observation. Here Claudia, in her new beauty, feels socially at home but emotionally adrift—as much on the edge of the still racially divided society as the blacks who surround her. She takes their black yardman, the assured, laconic Calvin, as her lover and entertains thoughts of running away with him and leaving the heedless Dan and his instinctively racist friends behind. So far the story has been riveting, and Claudia's narrative voice thoroughly believable. But suddenly the book swerves into murder mystery territory, and MacLeod loses her grip. Dan is shot and killed, perhaps by Calvin, and Claudia becomes the center of attention in a trial that has only one possible outcome. It's a messy, hasty-seeming ending to a book that began with huge promise. (June 11)

Forecast:MacLeod is a highly promising writer and her theme, as well as her skillful portrait of today's South, are strong selling points, even if the murder mystery angle fails to strike sparks.