Red Love

``This is a novel about the joys of espionage,'' writes Gerald Lerner, the fictional author of this fictionalizedok? account of the Rosenbergs--here called Dolly and Solly Rubell--and the American Communist movement. Evanier ( The One-Star Jew ) has Lerner tell the story in a loose series of vignettes that often read like hastily shuffled notes. Interspersed with the account of the arrest, trial and execution of the Rubells in 1954 are disjointed histories, sometimes funny, sometimes tragic, of various members of the circle, and the story of how Lerner tracked them down in the '80s. Most are ``misfits and losers'' who came from New York City's Lower East Side, attended City College and yelled in Union Square rallies. Two of the best pieces show the disillusionment of two young men, one in the Spanish Civil War, the other in Stalin's camps. Comic relief is provided by a badly translated play (``Vomit You Fascist Despoilers into the Sea''), and a conspiracy theorist whose agenda is summed up by his use of ``Franklin D. Rosenfeld.'' Although the sloganeering is tiresome, Evanier does a fine job in showing the shades of gray between helping the Soviets ``live a little better'' and espionage. Readers who are willing to deal with the episodic structure will find an evocative path back to the days of sincere revolutionary fervor. (Feb.)