Touching

Whenever her father gets drunk, Eve moves out to go live with friends. But she always returns to him, to help him start overagain. The cycle of running away and returning continues, until one evening he bursts in on her play rehearsal and accuses her of ``whorish'' behavior. In the climax of the story, he grabs Eve, believing her to be the wife who left him, and attempts to kiss and touch her. A later scene at Alcoholics Anonymous shows how he is trying to reform. The emotional thrust of this novel is most on target and engrossing when Eve is with her friends, trying to figure out her next move, and when her father, sober and remorseful, begs her to stay. The rest is fragmented; Levy fails to inject originality into territory that has been explored many times. Ages 11-up. (May)