17 Morton Street

In this novel, about the pull of timeless obsessions, three ``thirtysomething'' sisters pursue love, sex, motherhood and a male au pair. Two of the Jennings sisters are blond knockouts; the third is, well, smart. Our trio--two single, one married--share the home they grew up in on Manhattan's Morton Street. Homemaker Sara, the eldest, always knew her vocation to be bringing up baby. Perri is a writer and documentary filmmaker. Narrator Lucy, the youngest and brainiest, is a psychology professor. When Sara accidentally becomes pregnant with a third child, her husband hires Carlo, an attractive young Italian graduate student, to help out. Eventually, sex is one of the things he helps out with, provoking tragicomic consequences. One baby (Sara's) is born, another (Lucy and Carlo's) conceived, and the Jennings' house nearly burns down. Sprinkled among sometimes contrived sexual intrigues are tidbits about documentary filmmaking and the financial inequities between publishers and authors. These last are subjects that Hiller, a documentary filmmaker and author of An Old Friend from High School , writes of most convincingly in an enjoyable if occasionally glib novel, her hardcover debut. (June)