A Wrestling Season

From Publishers Weekly When Trover Kleeve isn't busy defending the rights of pornographers, he expends time and money buying everything he can lay his fevered hands on. The jumble that accumulates at his Pennsylvania homestead includes a fleet of unroadworthy cars, a mound of mountaineering equipment and a stack of underwear so garish it brings a blush to the cheeks of his long-suffering wife, Louise. The Kleeve children are a study in opposites: tenderhearted Michael is a high-school wrestling champ, while his sister, Mighty, strides furiously through life with the foul mouth and temper of a Marine drill sergeant. Since Stark ( The Dealer's Yard and Other Stories does not develop much of a plot, her first novel is an unfocused conglomeration of murky family scenes woven loosely around Michael's wrestling season. A handful of home truths shines through, but the infinitely childish Trover is pure caricature as he skitters from one petulant rampage to the next and, for all their zany quirks, the Kleeves prove unengaging over the long haul. First serial to the Atlantic. Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc. From Library Journal Mighty Kleeve, teenage daughter and amateur photographer of the surreal, describes her parents as "not two people but one wholly integrated stampede of lunacy." Trover loves his family but cannot express his affection in a rational way; instead, he drinks to excess, relentlessly criticizes his family, and then buys them extravagant gifts. Louise, his wife, is an earthy, creative woman who loves her children . . . and her husband, despite herself. Paradoxically, their gentle son, Michael, is gunning for a state championship in wrestling. Not surprisingly, the Kleeve household offers temporary haven to a "functionally homeless kid" and a wayward nun. In her first novel, Stark recalls John Irving and John Kennedy Toole but with a feminist twist. The book starts slowly but picks up steam and is ultimately engaging. Kimberly G. Allen, Supreme Court Lib., Washington, D.C.Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.