A Disturbance in One Place

In a series of graphic sketches, the author of the witty On Mermaid Avenue depicts a young Jewish woman who passes her days and nights in determined promiscuity as she and her random lovers casually confront their insecurities. New York at its urban dreariest is the background. The sharp-tongued narrator lives without guilt (``I like naked bodies, and when I put clothes on, it's with the idea of taking them off'') but desires to understand her past. Does she indulge in multiple liaisons because her father, a compulsive gambler, was a suicide? Is she haphazardly trying to find her Jewish roots? Whatever the reason, her rampant emotions propel her through a series of erotic and often funny encounters that bring her little comfort. The lovers are nameless: a Sicilian hit man; a famous multimedia artist; the aging love of her life; and the placid man she's been married to for four years, whom she refers to only as ``my husband.'' He has a cold streak and, fortunately, doesn't want to know too much. Some sharply defined episodes (a caustic encounter in a Dairy Deli; some nasty words from the hit man's long-dead mother) force this brittle woman to take a long, fresh look at herself. Kirshenbaum seems at times to be on a comic spree, but in the end this is a dark and powerful look at a troubled spirit. (Apr.)