FICTION

THE LOTUS EATER by Marc Laidlaw (St. Martin’s: $19.95; 240 pp.) “The Lotus Eater” reminds me of the old Alcan Highway, the one made of parallel logs: If you moved fast enough you wouldn’t notice the bumps. Zip right through Marc Laidlaw’s fictional Bohemia Bay, a Southern California coast town sometimes known as Fire Island West. Don’t pause to ask why an assortment of singularly scabrous youths belong to the One-Way Club, a Christian conclave presided over by Hawk, an ex-con who lives on a dirt lot in a “trailer squatting in the sun like a lunatic’s chapel,” and who preaches the Gospel of “the straight-talkin’, woman lovin’, two-fisted fightin’ Jesus.” Don’t probe too deeply into the motivations of a rival gang led by Sal Diaz, a local scuz who deals drugs only to provide a more magnanimous milieu for his gang, a giggle of runaway boys whose nicknames run to “Marilyn” and “Bogey.”

Laidlaw, author of “Kalifornia”, writes at the speed of squeam. He is a master of the lurid, the vile: A squashed skull examined in detail; a bilious drainage pipe; crawly little blind things. Not much, though, in the way of a plot. Nonetheless, there’s a certain fascination, a sidelong glance at a freeway accident. But again, don’t stop to smell the flowers. There aren’t any.