Out of Time

Ghosts with a hidden agenda keep the pages turning in this amusing and engrossing first novel by the editor of The One You Call Sister: New Women's Fiction (1989 - not reviewed). It was raining in Manhattan. To escape the damp, Susan Van Dine stepped into a tiny antiques shop somewhere on Eighth Avenue - or was it Sixth? The bell over the door signaled her entrance, and from her post behind the counter the middleaged female proprietor nodded politely. So begins this tale of a young, urban lesbian's obsession with the lives of four 1920's women whose photograph album she finds - and, contrary to her nature, steals - from a New York boutique. Self. dubbed "The Gang," the women peep flirtatiously out at Susan from the sepia-toned photos almost as though they're trying to tell her something. But what? The would-be writer's fascination with the long-dead feminist activist, the British aristocrat, the writer, and the film ingenue - whom she correctly assumes comprise two lesbian couples - leads her to neglect her studies at Columbia as well as her relationship with Catherine, whose interests as a feminist historian do not include undocumented nobodies. But no matter; Susan doesn't need Catherine's support in this case. Harriet, the deceased actress, has begun whispering secrets in her ear. As straightforward haunting develops into a series of ghostly seductions, Susan retraces The Gang's life experiences through their journals and correspondence and follows their faded footsteps from Saratoga to Montauk to Manhattan's Upper West Side. Even practical-minded Catherine loosens up after the ghosts provide Susan with an unexpected inheritance, a cheap Village apartment and enough material to write a book; in gratitude, the two peel layer upon layer from the forgotten past until they, as well as all four harried souls, can rest in peace. Martinac's talent for mood, mystery, and literary seduction shine in this unusually impressive debut. (Kirkus Reviews)