Cheaters

Dickey's racy comedy of African-American singles and couples will please, and won't surprise, the many fans he won with Milk in My Coffee, Friends and Lovers and Sister, Sister. In Dickey's Los Angeles, everybody who's anybody assumes that all couples cheat, and that nothing feels more divine than a forbidden sexual rendezvous. A trio of first-person narrators--Stephan, Chante and Darnell--tell interlocking stories in slick, contemporary chatter: often their talk reads like transcripts of phone sex. Stephan battles the memory of a father who considered the number of his female sexual conquests a measure of manhood. Chante seeks exclusive love from a high-performance stud. Darnell's wife, Dawn, doesn't understand him or his pressing desire to write; that's why he cheats on her with the comely Tammy. In and out of the bedroom, these protagonists' self-serving choices frequently get their hearts broken and leave them little room for insight and redemption. Trying hard to make his characters sexy, Dickey can forget to render them likable, attending instead to their stressful self-doubts and their torrid sexual desires. Though Dickey's numerous jokes about sex toys and organ size grow limp, he sprinkles raw, street-savvy humor on almost every page until the strained denouement. This provocative diversion is just right for summer reading, as lusty partners change places with the regularity of a sunrise and every encounter is rendered with a knowing smirk and a playful wink. Literary Guild and Doubleday Book Club alternates; author tour. (July)