Separate Hours

Baumbach employs a variety of narrative voices in his well-crafted new novel, but none of them, he makes it clear, are to be trusted. Obtusely analytical Manhattan psychotherapists Yuri and Adrienne Tipton take turns describing the tortured, slow-motion disintegration of their ``relentlessly painful relationship.'' Baumbach perfectly captures the bland analysts' language that disguises scathing verbal abuse as simple observation. Yuri and Adrienne relate the professional competitiveness and personal cruelties that destroy their affection, though their mutual obsession remains. Each has an affair with a patient. The suspicious Yuri pesters Adrienne in an attempt to learn ``what's going on''; Adrienne reads Yuri's journal. A chapter titled ``The Movie of Their Lives'' offers a purportedly objective account, but it, too, is unreliable. Communication breaks down entirely when they visit a family therapist (``Neither blah, nor blah, nor even--I say this with difficulty--blah'' Adrienne hears Yuri say), the last step before divorce and the ideal postmortem--an analytical case study. Baumbach is the author of The Life and Times of Major Fiction . ( Aug. )