Count~r~,oint is. a remarkable and percep-

tive eovel about a woman who is successful

in ~ rv aspect of her life, except the most

imp,~rtant. And it is that crucial aspect-the

emotional-that precipitates the crisis that

threatens everything she has achieved and

endangers her own life.

When Kate received the doctor s call, tell-

ing her that her adoptive sister had been

hospitalized after a suicide attempt, and ask-

ing Kate to come and look after the children,

her first instinct was to refuse. Why should

she come? She had spent her life running

away from her family and hadn t seen her

sister in 20 years.

But eventually she went, spending the

nights at her sisters home hi the wealthy

suburb and her days in New York City at

her job as senior editor in a publishing

house. Kate had finally made the gesture as

a kind of offering on the altar of guilt and

common decency.

But as she stayed and attempted to cope

with the alienated young people and with

her brother-in-law who had returned from

an overseas assignment, she finds that she

must confront once again the commitments

she was never able to make. Who is it, final-

ly, that Kate loves? Paul, her brother-in-law,

in whom her old choice is reborn? Graham,

the married man she loved and once lived

with? Joel, who is more threatening because

he is younger? Or Jed, who is different from

anyone she has ever known before?