In this novcl oftwisted love, Dyan

Sheldon fractures the fairy tale of a family

life and holds up a dark and polished mir-

ror to our own habits of being and loving.

Victim of Love is set in a bad marriage

on the Upper West Side of Manhattan.

Paul Sutcliffe, 38, is a tenured professor

on the vergc, hc thinks, of making a litcr-

ary name for himself.Good-looking, and

charming when it suits him, he is the

shining center ofa gratifying little uni-

vcrsc: two lovcrs, long-standing Janet

and bright young Liz; two children,

Patsv and David, who thinks the world

of him; a dying mother in the Bronx who

esteems him somewhat less; and above

all, a dew)ted wife, Linda, who tends to

the exigcncics ofthc houschold and "ful-

fills" herself, as if she had the time, with a

publishing job. Paul Sutcliffe asserts a

belief in love (and in just about anything

that might persuadc the world of his sen-

sitivity), and up to now his world has

circled around him, gullibly.

But Linda Sutcliffe s own orbit around

her husband has become a bit erratic of

late. Finding the mantlc of her devotion

frayed and discovering Paul s infidelity,

shc isn t sure whcthcr it s forgivcncss or

revenge she wants. She takes a lover of

her own, throws her husband out of the

house, shoots for change. But what are

hcr chanccs? What good will it do her?

In a series of brillianth, articulated

sccncs, and with a narrativc voice that is

wryly involvcd and scathingly ironic,

Dvan Sheldon etches thcsc lives with acid

and finds them grooved into patterns of