Entering Fire

In this parody of French fascism, Lamprias de Bergerac, a hedonistic Frenchman who becomes rich and famous for creating popular orchids, marries a cool, aristocratic woman who, as he puts it, has ""thick, black eyebrows, close set, like centipedes about to copulate.'' After one night togethershe conceives but is shocked by his sensualityshe shuns him, and he seeks pleasure elsewhere, traveling around the world for years at a time. The couple's stuffy, narrow-minded son, Septimus, hates his father and his father's lusty love of exotic people and plants. As Septimus grows up, he becomes obsessed with racial purity, supports the Nazis during the Occupation, flees to South America, and then comes to the U.S., where his father now lives (and denounces him to J. Edgar Hoover during the McCarthy era). This tale resonates with a variety of human feelings. Ducornet is an American who lives in France. (April)