A PATCHWORK PLANET

Knowing the boundary between eccentricity and caricature is one of Tyler's surest gifts as a novelist. While surely quirky and idiosyncratic, her characters do not lapse into cliché, which is why Tyler's works are always original and surprising. It is a skill Kerry Shale has yet to learn as a reader. In this narration about an underachieving young man trying to outdistance the bad behavior of his past, Shale too often adopts characterizations that are broad to the point of ludicrous. He can do better--and does in his sympathetic portrayal of Barnaby, the main character who is belatedly struggling to grow up. But with virtually every other figure, Shale turns Tyler's well-drawn portraits into clowns. M.O. © AudioFile 2001, Portland, Maine [Published: OCT/ NOV 01]