A Stranger's House

Claire and Tom Templeton purchase their dream home, and childless, brooding Claire is saved from an incipient breakdown by the house's mutually devoted caretakers--a mentally retarded older man and a teenager. ``Lott hits some emotional bull's-eyes in his portrait of the loving but unhappy Templetons,'' noted PW , ``but the narrative often lapses into sentimentality.'' (Jan.)