Member-Guest

The member-guest golf weekend at the Easthelmsford (read: Southampton, N.Y.) Country Club (ECC) is an opportunity for upstate lawyer Augie Wittenbecher to spend some time with his old friend Gordon McSweeney. But Gordon has been careening downhill: he has an unsatisfying, low-paying job; a disintegrating marriage; a household in shambles; and he appears to view life through an alcoholic haze. Augie's discomfort is exacerbated by the fact that Gordon's superficial wife, Catherine, is determined to seduce him right under his host's roof. During the course of the weekend, Augie becomes attracted to Azy Flannery, a daughter of a snooty Easthelmsford family who also happens to be the fiancee of Augie's boyhood nemesis. In an unlikely sequence of events, Augie and Azy cram six months' surreptitious courtship into three days, resulting in the alienation of Catherine; Augie's weekend date, Betty; and the entire ECC. Amid these shenanigans, Augie and Gordon manage to win a few of their matches, further enraging the establishment. Robinson ( The Whole Truth ) is an obvious golf maven, and his writing is literate and often insightful. But much of the plot is too incredible to be taken seriously, and the ribbon-tied conclusion is the stuff of fairy tales. (June)