by Joyce Maynard
"Here is all most women need," muses one of Maynard's female characters: "A kiss on the cheek first thing in the morning, his hand brushing the hair away from her face. When she comes out of the shower, he tells her, 'You sure look pretty.' Tell her what a wonderful job she's doing with the baby. Ask her if she's had any interesting dreams lately." In this smashing first novel, precocious journalist Joyce Maynard, 27, analyzes a mixed bag of women in a small New England town. In common they have motherhood, or its anticipation, which Maynard aptly sees as a pulsating force that totally motivates the women it touches. It drives dim-witted Wanda to child abuse, affection-hungry Jill to abortion, upwardly mobile Carla to real commitment and henpecked Tara to an overdue adulthood. Unhappily, the same speeding evolutionary momentum tends to drag the dopey male characters by the hair in the wake of these powerful mommies. Men readers, if there are any, will not like this. Though Maynard's characters vary widely in IQ, class and state of mental health, she has a genius for exposing the style of each. She also succeeds in telling several vivid, fast-paced tales at once. For women, especially those touched by the eruptive power of motherhood, this is an enjoyable, thoughtful book. (Knopf, $10.95)
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