SUDDEN RAIN

The author of six previous novels, Wolff (1918–2002) hid this one, her seventh, in her refrigerator for 30 years. And it does feel frozen in time, a brilliant, noirish cultural commentary on upheaval in American marriage and politics, circa 1970. From the novel's first scene—a tense tour of a Los Angeles divorce court, where a stressed housewife mulls monogamy and stumbles into a mystery in the ladies' room—it's clear the reader is in the hands of a philosopher who can spin the heck out of a story, too. Over a four-day weekend and 400-some pages, the author brings a half-dozen Southern California families to the boiling point, calling on the forces of nature (human and elemental) to portray the trouble she sees brewing in suburbia. And trouble—much of it deadly—is oozing out everywhere, from the cracks and chasms that have appeared between husbands and wives, parents and children, humans and planet. Wolff weaves the era's social upheaval into each foreboding page, but it's her devastating insight into what people say and do when they're disappointed with each other that makes this book a page-turner. The author was only 22 when she first made readers ache for badly behaved lovers and their country, both at a critical crossroads in 1941's Whistle Stop . Wolff wrote this novel with 30 more years, two marriages and motherhood under her belt. Her experience shows, in all the right ways. (Apr.)