COSMOPOLIS

Don DeLillo has avid fans who adore the humor, symbolism, and neo-Gothic fantasy of Underworld and his other novels. In this one, a youngish tycoon enters his custom-made limo to traverse Manhattan for a haircut. The journey takes him an entire day, becoming an odyssey of erotic and satiric adventures, ending with a confrontation with his would-be assassin. Echoes of Joyce, Cheever, and Tom Robbins abound. Will Patton lowers his rugged voice to a near whisper, imbuing the entire exercise with a sinister presentiment of doom. In so doing, much of the humor is sacrificed. The combination of murky text and mumbling reader makes the novel difficult to concentrate on. Y.R. (c) AudioFile 2003, Portland, Maine [Published: JUN/JUL 03]