Mall

A faithful exegete of suburban nihilism, playwright and solo performer Bogosian delivers for his first novel a surreal ""day in the life"" tale that explores two of his trademark themes: suburban life and the illusory nature of ""normalcy."" Mal is a 30-something speed freak living with his mother in a drugged out fog, unwashed and virtually unconscious. After 90 days on crystal meth, Mal kills his mom, then goes on a rampage at the nearby mall. Bogosian uses this event to introduce a cross-section of mall life. Jeffrey, a dreadlocked teen, fantasizes about being a writer. He's got a crush on Adelle, whose narcissistic ennui he attributes to ""a kind of efficiency. She's full of life but she's saving herself for the right moment...."" His friend Berkeley has scored some retro windowpane acid, and so Jeff experiences Mal's fiery incursion in a hallucinatory state. Businessman Danny is a hapless, though hardly innocent, shopper at the mall, who spots Donna, an exhibitionist, sex-starved housewife performing a kinky striptease in a half-open dressing room. The police catch Danny peeping and arrest him, but then Mal, now shooting indiscriminately in the mall, pegs the cops, and Danny is left to wander around in handcuffs, which is how he runs into Adelle, who takes Danny on a sexy ride he may never recover from. While Bogosian's teen characters seem a little bit like rejects from a To Die For casting call, his droll remarks and dramatic pacing make this debut novel a typically Bogosian experienceDlively and unique. If this absurdist La Ronde sometimes goes over the edge, Bogosian's stature in contemporary pop culture, and his proven ability to work (and self-publicize) in numerous media, should give his novel legs. Agents, Claudia Cross, George Lane. (Nov.)