Hunger Point

In Medoff's memorable first novel, narrator Frannie, a directionless 26-year-old who has just moved back into her parents' Long Island home, must cope with her younger, more ambitious sister Shelly's hospitalization for anorexia, as well as with her own obsessions with food and body image. After a lengthy medical treatment, Shelly commits suicide, leaving Frannie to search for the reason why. Struggling to give her life direction, Frannie sinks into a depression much like Shelly's, lashing out at family and friends, mimicking her sister's self-destructive habits. Eventually, she manages to accept her family's dysfunctionality and to move on. That resolution is too long in coming, but believable characters (especially Frannie's loving grandfather and her egotistical friend Abby) enliven the narrative considerably. And while Frannie's cynical bravado and wry humor fail to mitigate fully her titanic self-absorption, she remains a basically appealing character whose story is engaging. $40,000 ad/promo; simultaneous Harper audio; foreign rights sold in France; U.K. and translation rights: Alice Martell; first serial rights: HarperCollins; dramatic rights: ReganBooks. (Feb.)