Can't Dance

In their own macho vernacular, Crawford ( Lords of the Plain ) brings to life three young football-playing Texans and makes the details of their game intelligible and suspenseful. The novel opens with a high-school all-star game in the Dallas district where Chummy, Black and Noel become uneasy buddies in a night of play, partying and violence. These continue to be the ingredients of their lives as they go off to college on football scholarships. Middle-class, tough, seemingly inarticulate, they are, however, concerned about one another; their destinies, once they help Chummy (an adopted Mexican boy) in a bootlegging enterprise, are as ineluctable as in classical tragedy. The scenes of play and violence (especially a car chase with a truck full of beer) are breathlessly real, as are the three young men and some of the coaches and other players. Unfortunately, Crawford is not as successful with the women characters in this macho story. (Sept.)