The Shape of Wilderness

In her debut novel, playwright Berc takes a stab at magical realism, but too much magic and some unfortunately predictable realism throws her off balance. Hanging over the novel is Emmanuel: absent for 10 years, he left behind twins Miranda and Rose; his wife, Cora; and a now-empty hotel in the middle of the American nowhere. Teenaged Miranda and Rose are quite different from each other: Miranda is beautiful and falls in love with a stranger named Benjamin (``His name is Benjamin,'' she says, ``He smells like ocean, he sings''), while the awkward Rose takes up with a man named Trapper who rents out a shed behind the hotel and teaches her taxidermy. And for her part, the deserted, disillusioned Cora finds solace in Emerald, the hotel's odd housekeeper. Berc offers details of the relationships, but the interaction between her characters is never really believable. The relationship between Trapper and Rose (who has long periods during which she is a raven) is a disturbing sexual escalation that culminates in an exceedingly graphic scene involving the head of a dead squirrel. Berc's style is appealing, if occasionally pretentious, but the novel's intentionally disconnected tone, although no doubt meant to reflect the alienation of the landscape, more accurately reflects an alienation from the narrative. (Oct.)