Pure Poetry

Poet and femme fatale Lila Moscowitz is in top form, and at rock bottom, in Kirshenbaum's relentlessly sassy tale of a beautiful 34-year-old Jewish woman on a quest for love and happiness. Lila is a minor New York celebrity, famous for her bawdy yet formally rigorous sonnets, but her success as a writer can't compensate for the fact that she pines for her ex-husband, German cartographer Max Schirmer, while feigning interest in her current blue-blooded boyfriend, Henry. Having sabotaged her marriage to Max in part because she felt she'd betrayed her Jewish heritage by marrying a German, Lila cracks many tepid, transparent jokes about loving the enemy in an attempt to mask her enduring passion for him. Another truth she hides from is that her passion for and dependence on Max threatened her sense of self. Lila's fear of trusting people is rooted predictably in her unsatisfactory family relationships, which Kirshenbaum describes in heavyhanded fashion. Lila's parents barely acknowledge her existence, though her mother, Bella, is as domineering as she is dismissive of her daughter. When Bella dies, Lila is not even informed of the funeral and, in an unconvincing scene, is kicked out of the house where the family is sitting shiva. Other plot twists, details and supporting characters are equally ineffectual: Lila wants to be 32 again, so she enlists her best friend Carmen to help her turn back time; Lila's apartment is haunted by two ghosts, her therapist is a cross-dresser and Henry keeps his parents' ashes in shoeboxes. The cast of characters make a sketchy backdrop for Lila's ongoing monologue about her search for happiness, but the heroine's path is obstructed by so many self-consciously irreverent jokes and cliched observations that she doesn't generate sympathy until the end of the book. Here, however, some of Lila's quandaries achieve resolution, and her journey seems worth it when her emotional complexity shines through her defensive wisecracking. (Mar.)