The Village

Mamet's jolting, minimalist first novel has the hallmarks of his plays--sharply observed, fractured dialogue; characters who talk past each other; insight into a terrible emptiness at the core of American life. Set in an anonymous small town, it centers on four people: Dick, petulant hardware store owner on the brink of bankruptcy; Henry, an elderly hunter adrift in cosmic speculations and the memories of the good old days, when life was simpler; Marty, who chops firewood and exults in the outdoors while his marriage and adolescent son slide toward disaster; and Maris, a foul-mouthed, sexually active young woman whose nonchalance conceals sadistic fantasies of torture. Mamet deftly illumines the extraordinary in ordinary lives and the heroism of the daily struggle for survival, and many passages of piercing, Hemingway-like beauty portray men close to nature--while their lives and wives go to hell. The author's acute mannerisms, however, don't always translate well to novel form. Characters think in stagey sentences: ``The more I know of myself the more I despise myself--for I see what I am, and, yet, am powerless to act to make it better,'' ponders one. In the end, his self-deluded characters don't inspire much sympathy or sustained interest. (Sept.)