Poetry and Purgatory

An uneven novel that fails to create a convincing, consistent world, Poetry and Purgatory proves that gritty detail can't take the place of plot and characters, or of depth and import. There's a promising start and a few virtuoso riffs--""I watched a broken umbrella die in the street""--but the book soon begins to skitter over the surfaces of the lives of a man dying of brain cancer, his dominatrix sister who is murdered and his girlfriend, dying from AIDS. The superabundance of imagery and cartoonish characters suggest a Chandleresque treatment of dark and satiric exaggeration, but the irony falls far short, as does Giovinazzo's (Life Is Hot in Cracktown) attempt to effect a postmodern subversion of the urban murder mystery. In fact, it often never rises above the cliche--""runaway whores hustling their bodies like vending machines""--or the ridiculous--""livid lashes fluttered falsely."" And the sloppy. At one point, the narrator describes somebody grabbing his ""limpid wrist."" By the last sixth of the book, Giovinazzo does hit a stride in which the narrator's discovery of some family secrets is disturbingly self-revelatory. Giovinazzo finally blends the rant and imagery with the characters and thrust of his story. This is a book too long by two thirds, and its repetitive descriptions of the demimonde are more of an interruption than an enhancement. The writing often sinks into a hallucinatory word-bath that is supposed to reveal the tortured inner world of the main character. The shame is that Giovinazzo can write engrossing scenes when he eschews the formulaic and surface for the delineation of emotions. (Dec.)