A Stairway to Paradise

Booker Prize-nominee (The Essence of the Thing) St. John casts a droll eye over sentimental entanglements in this sophisticated novel, which features three hapless, intertwined lovers. ""After all, it's not our fault,"" acknowledges Andrew Flynn, one of two middle-aged, lovelorn men who lust after the elusive Barbara, ""that we're ignorant and inept--it's the way we're designed, basically.... as a species, we're still in the experimental stage."" Flynn has just returned to London after a 10-year teaching stint in the U.S., leaving a broken marriage and young daughter behind. His friend Alex, a successful journalist, is stuck in a loveless marriage to Claire. Both men fall in love with Barbara, an elusive, charming young woman who can't decide where to plant her feet. Andrew thinks of Barbara as he sits in his ""brand-new, rather empty sitting-room,"" and Alex obsesses over her while Claire is away at the Scunthorpe Literary Festival. Confronted by the reciprocation of Barbara's feelings, Alex is ""too amazed by it to be able to think,"" much less do anything. He explains that he and his wife have a ""modus operandi,"" and plan to stay together until their youngest child, age eight, is old enough to attend boarding school. (The two children, meanwhile, secretly count the days until their parents divorce.) Barbara refuses to have an affair with a married man. No one feels sorry for himself or herself: they simply drift along, hoping for the best, expecting little. This refreshing and witty if sometimes dauntingly British novel demonstrates that people give themselves all sorts of reasons to avoid ""paradise."" (Sept.)