Home Again

It's been much too long since the last novel by the paterfamilias of the Yglesias clan, and meanwhile wife Helen and son Rafael both have been busy. His new one is a real change of pace: a raunchy, sometimes sentimental, occasionally bitter but ultimately touching story of an aging Latin (not, he insists, Hispanic) writer returning to his roots in Tampa. The action takes place in the course of one long night as Pinpin revisits his old home after the death of his parents, becomes involved with his hilariously gross cousin Tom-tom, drives around the old town, terrorizes customers at a stetMcDonald's by yelling ""Reagan voters!'' at them, and eventually nearly gets himself killed rescuing a half-witted relative of Tom-tom's from prostitution. All this is wonderfully realized, with an almost tangible sense of family solidarities and eccentricities and a superb ear for the sudden mood-swings of Latin speech. There is also another side to the novel that seems almost purely autobiographical and describes in flashbacks Pinpin's marrying into a well-to-do, snooty Anglo family, his work on a Communist newspaper, his growing bitterness, his quarrels with his grown sons as they become creatures of Hollywood. This, too, is crisply and convincingly done, but its tone is sour, and the two parts of the book never quite cohere. Still, most of Home Again is a rambunctious joy, from a writer who has been much missed. (September 25)