Rescuing Claire

In Johnson's immensely appealing first novel, boy meets girl in Madison, Wis., in 1972 and the result is a funny, often tender tale of romantic obsession. When Henry Fitzgerald graduates from the University of Wisconsin his life is mapped out: marriage to his girlfriend, an ambitious graduate student; then law school. Instead he falls in love with the pretty but deeply troubled Claire Cohen, and he's in over his head. The chronicle of his romantic ordeal captures the self-absorption of the 22-year-old in love, and so does Johnson's style, with its quirky asides to the reader and frequent (perhaps too frequent) use of parentheses. The characters are classic figures of the post-'60s landscape, from Henry's manic brother, a radical civil liberties lawyer and small-town celebrity, to a reformed sex pervert turned lay preacher who runs a hostel for wayward boys. (May)