Carnovsky's Retreat

The heart of this charming novel is the ``walkaway'' diary of Oscar Carnovsky, owner of a Brooklyn beer warehouse and ace handicapper at the track, who waved good-bye to his wife one summer morning in 1955 and didn't show up again until the eve of her birthday two years later. Through his ebullient, down-to-earth journal, willed to his nephew after his death, Carnovsky describes his new life as 49-year-old ``bachelor'' Oscar Fishliving in one room in lower Manhattan, waiting tables at Belmont Park (and in the summer at Saratoga Springs) and falling in love, most notably with a 19-year-old Swarthmore coed who grooms horses at the Belmont stables. Duberstein, whose first novel, The Marriage Hearse, was praised for its refreshing voice, has again created a distinctive, appealing character. Oscar is a lovably crusty codger whose sweetness and honesty never verge on sentimentality, and whose story leaves the reader with unexpected insights. (August)