Golden Rule

Juggling as many story lines as a soap opera, and with deadly wit, Dublin writer Palmer (Scarlet Angel) skewers all manner of pomposity and self-absorption in a contemporary London crowd. Central to the tale are two sisters who have nothing in common but who turn to each other when the going gets rough. The capable, self-satisfied elder sister, Patience Allardyce, a ""church lady,"" has always been the one to do everything right, until her banker husband, Hugh, falls in love with an artist and leaves her. Her sibling, Dorian Ormond, a dowdy and intellectual reporter, grows weary of her gossip-columnist lover (who calls himself a ""social diarist"") and considers returning to her husband, a frustrated biographer of Alexander Pope. In her opening chapter, Palmer sets the scene with a shooting that involves one of the sisters and then backtracks to show us the events that lead up to it. In the process, she dizzies the reader with a half-dozen amorous entanglements. Two tabloid barons, and their lackeys, in love with the same ruthless dragon lady, fall victim to Palmer's most penetrating caricatures. Changes and transformations come only for those who have found love. The other characters simply go on causing as much damage as possible, which may give the impression that Palmer hasn't concluded her story as much as ceased from exhaustion. Devoid of introspection, Palmer's social satire is still irresistible, while the words of the biographer's subject, Pope (""Men some to Bus'ness, some to Pleasure take/ But every Woman is at heart a Rake""), haunt the novel with perfect comic timing. (Nov.)