TAKING APART THE POCO POCO

A teasing domestic comedy set in today's grubby northern England, centering on a single day that threatens to tear a family apart. In his fourth novel to be published in the US, Francis departs from his trademark surrealistic, violent satires (Swansong, 1986, etc.) to venture into Roddy Doyle territory—24 hours in the life of a thoroughly unremarkable family, in the course of which everyone, including the dog, flirts with disaster. John and Margaret's 19th anniversary is the occasion, and as John fantasizes about having a fling and bearding his boss at the bank where he works, his wife agonizes over her secret appointment to have a lump in her breast examined. Meanwhile, eight-year-old Stephen mistakenly hops on a bus on his way to school and falls under the sway of a bellicose wino, and teenaged Ann plays hooky with a trio of youthful Jesus freaks headed for a fundamentalist Christian ``hoe-down.'' The author's intent is plain—``You could be transformed overnight, in the blink of an eye, from a perfectly ordinary family to a well-known local tragedy''—and his prose is vivid and convincing in the various set-pieces that introduce the characters. Francis can also be quite funny, particularly when writing from the dog's point of view (``He went into the front room and tried half-heartedly to fuck the settee, but it didn't convince....''). The plot, however, is built entirely on coincidence and arbitrary decisions—the (anti) climax being when Margaret meets John's boss at the clinic where he's having a lump of his own examined, and very nearly begins an affair with him at his house—an almost-affair interrupted by John's knock on the door. Each character, though, will end up blissfully ignorant of the danger that has come so near. Brilliant set-pieces aside, Francis delivers curiously underdeveloped people in a workmanlike plot—memorable mostly for one very mixed-up dog.