Notable

HOW THEY DO IT

by Robert A. Wallace

Morrow; 172 pages; $9.95

"How do porcupines make love?" asks the old joke. "Very, very carefully."But how do other animals do it? For those who want more serious replies, Biologist Robert Wallace provides some fascinating (and nonprurient) details. Volumes have been written about mating rituals at the top of the food chain. How They Do It demonstrates that the lower animals have rituals that are every bit as varied--or bizarre. Geese, for example, form menages `a trois; bedbugs practice homosexuality; lobsters are rapists, immobilizing mates with their powerful claws. Chimpanzees are hyperpromiscuous: an oestrous female will usually mate with every male in her pack. Rhinoceroses, which can weigh upwards of 3,000 Ibs., make love so roughly that zookeepers are hesitant about breeding them; after a sexual encounter, one of the behemoths often succumbs to la grande mort. Most animals, Wallace relates, accept occasional rejections. But some take them quite seriously, and no one, even in a Woody Allen movie, is more tragically affected than the male solitary wasp. He enthusiastically copulates for as long as several days. But when the female signals that she has had enough by turning away, he makes no amends or entreaties. His biological function fulfilled, he dies.

THE OLD NEIGHBORHOOD

by Avery Corman

Simon & Schuster; 219 pages; $10.95

Avery Gorman's favorite flavor is bittersweet. It may be his only one In Oh, God! he presented the deity as an old man amused and appalled at his creation. In Kramer vs. Kramer he made Splitsville an interesting place to spend marriage. His newest tale concerns the mid-life-style of Steve Robbins, a child of The Bronx circa 1944. Steve grows up indifferent to everything but basketbal played in a schoolyard. But his parents do not include jump shots as a requisite of upward mobility, and the dutiful son soon drifts off court to City College, Equipped with a business degree and a modicum of ambition, he sets out for "the most dazzling job in the world"--as an advertising man. Madison Avenue finds him the least dazzling candidate in New York, so Steve heads toward Los Angeles, where hey know how to do bittersweet by the numbers: No. 1, the rise to the summit via award-winning ads. No. 2, the beautiful wife whose wealthy parents are so assimilated they mispronounce the Yiddishisms sprinkled through their dialogue. No. 3, the breakup of family and business. No. 4, the search for roots back in New York, where Steve attempts a few foul shots at his past life. There are some affecting moments in The Old Neighborhood, but ultimately this scenario-sized volume seems as out of place on paper as its hero is on an office carpet. For Steve, home is cement. The Old Neighborhood belongs on celluloid.

THE GIRL I LEFT BEHIND

by Jane O'Reilly

Macmillan; 220 pages; $10.95

A photograph turns up in the back of a closet. "The girl is wearing a veil, and under it an expression of belligerent innocence. I do not remember her very well . . ." The bride is Author Jane O'Reilly, 0 for 2 in marriage, a working mother, no longer an innocent, but still belligerent in the cause of that most elusive constitutional guarantee, equality. In this collage of sparkling, ironic observations, she pursues her grail everywhere: in Aspen, Colo.; in Scotland; in the Soviet Union; even in Iran. But mainly she attempts to find it on home ground. Sometimes her search leads to melancholia. Conversing with an imaginary granddaughter 21 years from now, she says, "Women learned things that could never be unlearned . . . we discovered, more often than not, that we could not apply what we had learned to our private lives without destroying love." Sometimes she finds "a certain inherent humor in being on the cutting edge of a social revolution. It is funny, actually, to be unsure of what you feel more offended by: the guests ignoring your opinions or not complimenting you on your souffle."

O'Reilly, a contributor to TIME and other publications, long ago abandoned the conservative religious tenets of her childhood, but she never succumbs to the sin of despair. With a civil tongue in her cheek, she confesses, "It's hard to be a feminist if you are a woman." And she goes on examining America's flawed society on the theory that "I pinch myself. It hurts, therefore I am." That she is, and the movement is richer for her. Warning: the book is subtitled The Housewife's Moment of Truth and Other Feminist Ravings. The only raves O'Reilly should elicit are those from readers.

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