SALT WATER

Simmons, a former editor at the New York Times Book Review, made his name as a writer with a series of surreal comic novels, includi ng Powdered Eggs and Wrinkles, but the present book, a coming-of-age novella, is a complete change of pace. Written in a spare mascu line style, it is based loosely on Turgenev's classic First Love and is narrated by Michael Petrovich, who recalls the memorable sum mer of 1963 when he was 16 and when Mrs. Mertz and her beautiful daughter, Zina, rented a neighboring house on the East Coast offsho re islan...[Read more]