Self-Reliance

Set in Manhattan in the mid-'70s, this involving novel examines the mind of a struggling writer who is either in the midst of uncovering a major conspiracy or going crazy. Narrator Roy is burnt-out from his work as a freelance music writer for low-paying publications and disillusioned after the senseless death of a musician friend. He lucks into an interview with reclusive 69-year-old novelist Oliver Hartwell and hopes to make enough money from it to take his artist girlfriend on a vacation--before she loses interest in their bohemian affair. At the end of a successful interview, Hartwell leaks that he plans to stop answering his phone and his mail, and intends to vanish. He promises to contact Roy for an exclusive afterward if what he has revealed so far remains unpublished. Desperate for money, Roy tries to sell the Hartwell story to Rolling Stone but returns home to find that someone has broken into his apartment and stolen the tapes, rendering the piece unusable. Roy gives up writing, eventually becoming a performance artist (his magnum opus being the kidnapping of a lawyer's wife from Scarsdale at gunpoint). He becomes increasingly convinced that Hartwell is orchestrating everything from graffiti to news items. If Roy's paranoia sometimes grates, Brownstein ( Music from the Evening of the World ) skillfully re-creates the 1970s setting, from happenings in a burgeoning SoHo to Gary Gilmore's execution and Anita Bryant's anti-homosexual campaign. (Apr.)