The Wonder Book of Air

This promising first novel by the curator of William Faulkner's home seems to pick up where the Nobel winner left off-by spanning three generations of a Southern family, from 1931 to the present. We are introduced to young Harrison Dorrance as he makes his way through the confusion of adolescence with the help of his eccentric uncle, who advises him above all to be flexible, because ``the earth curves.'' Though accurate, this maxim is of little help when WWII begins and the once-charming boy grows into an embittered man. As the years pass, other narrative voices replace Harrison's, and a darker side of the protagonist is revealed through the words of the wife he abuses; later, he is seen through the eyes of his mistress, his son and, ultimately, his granddaughter. Shearer continually and gracefully manages to juxtapose the mundane, the lethal and the lyrical; the title comes from an encyclopedia that Harrison buys for his son, to help him ``dream his boy's dream of dirigibles and zeppelins.'' By such contrasts, the fresh and engagingly poetic story takes shape as a complex web of contradictions that is a pleasure to unravel. 17,500 first printing; author tour. (Feb.)