by Robert Coover
Robert Coover, a brilliant if unorthodox writer, has produced his fifth "novel." It is shorter than many magazine articles. There are only two characters, a maid and her master. The maid comes in early, makes a mistake in her cleaning, and the master must punish her. When she turns down his bed to air the quilts, she finds a dead mouse, old razor blades and a live frog. "Even the nice things she finds in the bed are somehow horrible: the toys broken, the food moldy, the clothing torn and bloody." The master feels burdened by his responsibility to make her perform up to certain standards. But does the maid enjoy her punishments? Coover proved that he is capable of the most awful acts of imagination in The Public Burning, in which a fictional Richard Nixon has sex with Ethel Rosenberg just before she is electrocuted in Times Square. But while this book is permeated by the possibility of sex, there is none. Here the novelist is playing a game of technique. The scene of maid and master is played out over and over, like a musical composition with variations. It's a Rubik's Cube of a book, a bit puzzling, but mesmerizing. (Grove, $10.95; paper, $4.95)
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