The House on R. Street

Characterized by a mechanical pace and monochrome emotion, Kohler's second novel (after The Perfect Place ) establishes a potentially poisonous mood but fails to takes it anywhere. The protagonist, a teenaged girl in 1920s South Africa who goes by the name of ``Bill'' simply ``because she behaves like a boy,'' evinces a tendency toward violence and a current of lesbian eroticism. As passages meant to disturb and provoke seldom do, if only because of the static pitch, it becomes apparent that Kohler's prose styling--a lush garden of present-tense sentences about a secretive and dangerous girl--is the book's raison d'etre. Concrete details are rare, but it is clear that Bill has recently shed her baby fat and reached adolescence as a devastating beauty, to the alarm of her drab sisters; she coolly strings men along, allowing them to fondle and kiss her in exchange for gold trinkets. Meanwhile, Bill's mother is bedridden by severe depression, while her father, a businessman who hoards diamonds, is sleeping with his wife's nurse. And something seems to have passed between Bill and her uncle, for she has mercilessly crushed one of his pet birds underfoot, and she's equally likely to turn this startling brand of violence on herself, using pins or other sharp objects. Elaborate hints about the reasons for Bill's self-destructive behavior never coalesce, however, and she remains an enigma, her story a pretentious and unidimensional affair. ( Apr. )