TO ORDER All titles may not be immediately available. . . . . . . . . . . . . RECENT REVIEWS: 3/14/97: Unbridled Power:Inside the Secret Culture of the IRS By Shelley L. Davis Nonfiction 3/13/97: We Are All Multiculturists Now By Nathan Glazer Nonfiction 3/12/97: Girls By Frederick Busch Fiction 3/11/97: As She Climbed Across the Table By Jonathan Lethem Fiction 3/10/97: Pass the Butterworms By Tim Cahill Nonfiction . . . . . . . . . . . . SEARCH BOOK ARCHIVES BY: title of book author publisher reviewer

E M O T I O N A L I D I O T D I A R Y O F A N BY MAGGIE ESTEP, HARMONY, 184 PAGES just when you thought there was little new to say about single life in the '90s, here comes "Diary of an Emotional Idiot," performance artist Maggie Estep's much-anticipated first novel. Yet another tale of love gone wrong too many times, "Diary" is saved by its fierce irreverence, razor-sharp humor and the simple fact that it doesn't take itself too seriously. Zoe, the book's 20-something, defiantly cynical protagonist, lives in a hovel in Manhattan's East Village and supports herself by writing porn books and working as a receptionist at a dominatrix club. One night she becomes obsessed with the idea of paying a surprise visit to her ex-boyfriend (he's named Satan), who dumped her the day after her father's funeral. Her intention: to tie him up with a bicycle chain and make him perform demeaning tasks. Satan's not home, so Zoe decides to wait for him in his closet, during which time she unravels the wryly amusing story of her dysfunctional life, from her teen years spent shuttling from horse farm to horse farm with her father and his entourage of girlfriends ("By now I had blue hair and loved the Sex Pistols") to her escapades in Morocco ("I wanted 12 naked Moroccan boys writhing in my hotel room") to her various stints in and out of rehab and halfway houses ("Fucking on the bathroom floor kept us sober"). Orgies, drug fests, petty theft, poverty -- Zoe's been there, done that. A darkly comic spin on the traditional coming-of-age story, "Diary" succeeds on the most basic level -- as pure entertainment -- but also as an honest portrait of misguided youth. Reminiscent of last summer's "Going Down," Jennifer Belle's similarly raw debut about a young woman who puts herself through college by becoming a call girl, it begs you to read on even though you pretty much know where it's all going to end. "Diary's" tart prose and almost too-well-paced vignettes make it feel, at times, better suited for the stage than the page -- which makes sense, considering that Estep was a principal member of MTV's "Spoken Words" series. Although Zoe's escapades are never dull, they can leave you wondering what else could possibly go wrong. While Estep has found a brazen voice in Zoe, it'll be even more interesting to hear what she has to say next. March 17, 1997 -- Meg Cohen Ragas Meg Cohen Ragas is a senior editor at San Francisco Focus. BOOKMARK: http://www.salonmagazine.com/sneaks/sneak.html