MULTIPLE CHOICE

A midlife back-to-school adventure propels a suburban housewife into an unlikely radio career in Cook's third novel, set on the South Shore of Massachusetts. March Monroe is the spunky protagonist who left college life behind to marry a civil engineer named Jeff and raise a daughter and son while working as an aerobics instructor, party planner and finally a life coach. With Olivia off to college and Jackson not far behind, March finally takes her husband up on his longstanding offer to send her back to school. The degree requires an internship, and when March explores her limited options she finds herself inadvertently working together with Olivia as fellow interns at a local radio station. Exploiting the friction between March and Olivia, handsome programming director David Callahan proposes that the two do a mother-daughter call-in show that quickly takes off and becomes popular. Cook wrings some humor out of family life, March's mild flirtation with Callahan and the back-to-school experience. But the story meanders, detouring into asides about family pets, the generation gap, the stresses of being overscheduled and other typical suburban family disasters. Despite (or because of) the stabs at domestic insight, the cluttered result reads like warmed-over Erma Bombeck. Agent, Lisa Bankoff. 5-city author tour. (July)