Bright Angel Time

When portions of this first novel recently appeared in the New Yorker, they drew attention for their plangent, affecting voice and powerful writing. These features remain striking in McPhee's impressive debut, especially her vivid, almost tactile sense of setting. The story, too, is absorbing: eight-year-old Kate (who narrates, looking back) is on a magical mystery tour of the American West with her mother, Eve, her two older sisters, her mother's boyfriend, Anton, and his four children in a turquoise camper in the summer of 1970. Anton--itinerant Gestalt therapist, former professional gambler and guru manque--encourages everyone to free themselves from the shackles of convention, letting the kids run wild and experiment with drugs as they tour the spectacular desert landscapes and national monuments. Kate enjoys some of the trip's more touristy aspects, especially a long-awaited trip to the Grand Canyon, where she sees the Bright Angel shale, whose name has long fascinated her. But she dreams of her former New Jersey home and her absent father, a geologist, who left the family to live with another woman. McPhee deftly renders the dynamic among the three sisters, the interplay of rivalry and trust, as well as their varying degrees of infatuation with the grandiose Anton. Eventually, however, the action, though always vividly described, loses psychological ballast. Eve comes to seem appallingly foolish. She sticks around even though Anton--who gives Esalen seminars on ""Romantic Love and Sexual Equality""--punches her in the face. Throughout the novel, McPhee maintains a tone of restrained scandal, pointing to moral judgment through indirection. Though she executes this technique with great skill, some readers may find it too subtle by half. (May)