Lee

In this arty first novel, the eponymous protagonist, a relentlessly cynical, misanthropic septuagenarian, returns home to Alabama after some 60 years up North dealing with ``children, money, jobs--life's rubbish.'' Clad in black, with black spectacles, onetime arsonist Lee, who suffers from hemorrhoids and rashes, viciously beats strangers with his cane. When he's not conversing with the wraithlike Judy, a shadowy companion of varying age, he also kicks children who happen to be in his path. Steeped in Greek classics, spouting cultured allusions to such subjects as Persian painting and Dostoyevski, Lee fancies himself a chastiser of humanity, satirist of the New South, a self-ordained Nietzschean prophet of the crumbling of the West. Alas, he's only a reactionary snob. A solipsistic little parable of spiritual self-delusion, the novel starts out interestingly but sinks under the weight of its own pretensions. (Aug.)