LIFE AND LOVE, SUCH AS THEY ARE

There must be 50 ways to cheat on your lover, and Shapiro explores several of them in her wry, sly, sad second novel—after her equally wry and sly The Right Bitch (1992). Ella Vaporsky, 30-ish, a graphic artist and self-doubting painter, has lived since college days with Stephen, a sweet, sometimes tuned-out musician and composer. Recently, though, Ella has begun sneaking out to sleep with married Frank, a successful photographer. Meanwhile, Stephen's good friend Burton finds his life—and his apartment—suddenly taken over by Ave, a flamboyant and manipulative pal of Ella's. To complicate matters, Burton has just started falling for Cynthia, a tense, pretty violinist who also happens to be a pal of Ella's. Burton sleeps with Cynthia; Ave slips out to sleep with her Latin lovers; and none of them sees the whole picture—just their own corners of need and guilt. Shapiro has great ironic style, and she layers deception upon deception neatly—everything becomes a question of who knows what, when. As events unravel, though, nothing gets knitted back together again, and the tragedy of the ending seems out of place—too bleak for what really has been an updated novel of manners, such as they are. Beyond all sense and sensibility, then, it's life and love in the modern world—darkly funny, deeply sexy, and, ultimately, bitterly grim: it's manners with the white gloves not only off but ripped to shreds.