Divine Concepts of Physical Beauty

Hanging from a ceiling hook, her body painted gold from head to toe, performance artist Kelly O'Kelly takes death-defying risks. But her high-flying act will bring tragedy crashing down on her complacent boyfriend Miles Harrier, who toys with her affections, and on Lucinda Fortune, the incurable romantic Miles beds. Set in London and its affluent suburbs, this mordant comedy of manners is also an exquisite, if overripe, meditation on physical beauty and love. Miles's third flame and eventual fiancee, a fashion model named Stella, is terrified of sex. Caught between love and lust, Miles becomes ``a voyeur of his own love affair.'' Intertwined with these goings-on is the story of a homosexual couple's breakup and the senseless, violent revenge the younger man takes on his lover. Writing like a metaphysical poet, with rapier shafts of irony and wit, Bracewell ( The Crypto-Amnesia Club ) depicts lives built on illusions, then redirected by false hopes or assumptions. (May)